Interview with Jim Stanard: Insights on His Musical Evolution

March 29, 2025

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Making a Scene Presents an interview with Jim Stanard

Magical is the third full-length studio album from award-winning singer-songwriter Jim Stanard. In reviewing his last album which featured Bethany & Peter Yarrow, American Blues Scene wrote “they say there’ll never be another Johnny Cash or Kris Kristofferson, but Jim Stanard draws from the same well of weathered experience.” That sentiment is even more true for this album.

Stanard teams up again with producer Kip Winger, famed frontman of the multi-platinum rock band Winger and Grammy-nominated classical composer, and guitarist Jon Skibic, known for his work with the Afghan Whigs. The album was recorded in Nashville and a band of A-team studio pros rounds out the band. Grammy-winning engineer Brandon Bell (Joni Mitchell, Brandi Carlile) contributed the mixes. The collection features Stanard’s quirky, observational and introspective lyrical approach to themes ranging from the humorous to the philosophical, with a healthy dose of love lost, and melodies that can compete with any pop hook for their staying power long after the last note.

It would be fair to say that musically, Jim Stanard is something of a late bloomer, embracing a life in music at a point where many in his shoes surrender to the urge to take things easy. During a successful career in the business world, he made a point of seeking out new challenges, and he’s applied that attitude to his work as a creative artist. “It all felt very natural to me”, Stanard enthuses. “It was like learning a language that I’d been hearing for my whole life. In business, I learned the value of having the right teachers, the right mentors. So when I started writing songs, I sought out the right people for guidance, and listened to what they had to say, while also being willing to take some risks”.

Jim’s 2018 debut Bucket List piqued the interest of critics, with one reviewer calling it his “sleeper pick for best independent label album thus far in 2018” and another commenting on Stanard’s “fresh and highly believable voice.” His writing was another focus and he was recognized as “an intelligent, profound, sometimes thoughtful and humorous observer” with “a gift for poetry and narrative.” Jim’s profile continued to grow with 2020’s Color Outside The Lines, the album title an autobiographical nod to the artist’s journey from a numbers-based career to more creative and artistic territory. The album charted on The Folk Chart in the US and reached the top 15 on the EuroAmericana chart, and “Home” (featuring guest vocals from folk legend Peter Yarrow and his daughter, Bethany) reached #1 and spent 4 weeks in the Top 5 on Radio Guitar One’s Top 25 Folk Cuts chart. “Witness Protection” was a 2nd place winner in the International Songwriting Competition and Jim’s songs were semifinalists in six categories. Videos from the album garnered more than three quarters of a million views. While recording promotional material for the album, Stanard caught lightning in a bottle with a live-in-studio set of covers from some of his influences including Jason Isbell, Townes Van Zandt, Jimmy Webb, and Leonard Cohen. The EP features the trio of Stanard on acoustic guitar, Jon Skibic on electric guitar, and fiddler Ryan Joseph (Alan Jackson, Marty Stuart) and was released as The Soultrain Sessions in 2021.

“I played a lot of music in the ’60s and early ’70s, playing solo in college coffeehouses for about fifteen years”, Stanard recalls. “Then I got busy with other stuff and stopped playing, but I always carried the music with me. Even after I’d quit playing, I was always listening and absorbing and accumulating a lot of musical knowledge, so when it comes to writing songs I’m endlessly inspired”.

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