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JIM RILEY is a genuine rambling man.

Alias Rider Jim Riley,
North Vancouver’s adopted
folksinging son has been on
the street-level busking
bailadeer musicai circuit
since he was 17, playing
venues as close to the curb
of life as diners and street
corners for a paucity of fi-
nancial return, but a wealth
of life experience.

| By TIMOTHY RENSHAW

He has rubbed musical
shoulders and swapped
troubadourian _ philosophies
with the likes of Bob Dylan
(‘‘a super guy’’), John
Hammond Jr., and
Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, who
adopted the fresh-faced 20

year-old as a musical son
and kindred free spirit after
meeting Riley at a New York
music festival in 1978.

“He was 50, getting fed
up with the lifestyle, tired of
it all. I think I rekindled his
spirit, reinspired him just as
he had originally inspired
me,” says Riley.

The two have kept in
touch and remained friends
ever since,

Riley moved with his fam-
ily from Alberta to North
Vancouver in 1966. It was a
time of blossoming West
Coast flower-powerism, a
time rife with romanticism
of getting on the road, of
playing music.

Hooked on the mystique
of footloose travel from the
moment he devoured Woody
Guthrie’s biography, Bound
For Glory, as a Canyon

NEWS photo Terry Peters

RAMBLIN' MAN Rider Jim Riley isn’t the vagabond he used to be but he still plays the same folk, blues and jazz he’s
known for. Riley can be seen and heard through the month of October on Friday and Saturday nights at Benningtons.

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95 |

Who’s
doing
what
‘PAGE 56

Ksinger’ Ss seen it all

Heights elementary student,
Riley continues criss-crossing
North America, guitar in
hand, playing backwaters
and bus stations for eight
months of each year.
ROOTLESSNESS

At 27, Riley confesses to
being a ‘‘life sentence guy’?
in a pursuit of rootlessness
that would strike white-
knuckled fear into the more
sedentary of hometown
populations. He has been
flat broke, out of hope, and
desperate. He has absorbed
life from an underside that
few have the opportunity or
the desire to experience.

But even his quest for the
drifter's legacy has slowed:
‘*When you get older things
change. I’d like to have the
money to be able to support
a family and have a house of
my own. I’m not the vaga-
bond I used to be.”

It’s not that he hasn’t
tried to make a go of it asa
regular working stiff. In
1983, Riley put his free-
spirited nose to the grind-
stone as a lot boy at a Van-
couver car dealership. The
urge to move, however, did
not dissipate. Occupational
claustrophobia overwhelmed
him.

CAN BE AVERAGE

“I know I can be an
average lot boy and an
average truck driver, but
music is something 1 excel
in. It’s where I want to go.””.

55 - Friday, October 11, 1985 -

WSC AIS TIGER —

Born to perform.

Though he would happily
accept the lot of bonafide
superstar, Riley has not
chased it with the tenacity
that his natural talent might
dictate. He has written hun-
dreds of sougs, he has re-
corded with the cream of
L.A. recording musician-
ship, he has played with
bands such as Kinky Fried-
man’s Texas Jewboys, but
he admits to being reluctant
to approaching high-pitched
Bruce Allen-style manage-
ment.

Such shout and shove does
not fit Riley’s genuine and
gentle persona: ‘I’m just
trying to hold up my end of
the refrigerator and waiting
for someone else to pick up
the other end.’’

Describing himself. as a
musical throwback, Riley
says the electronic ‘par-
aphernalia that so often ac-
companies 80s sole perfor-
mers has polluted the origi-
nal concept of the lone
musician outfitted only with
song and single instrument.

“ like synthesizers, but 1
guess I’m old fashioned. To
me the drum machines and
rhythm machines are not
music, they are too contriv-
ed, t00 computerized.”

Riley will be ‘performing
his lengthy repertoire’ of
blues, folk and rock at Ben-
nington's restaurant Friday
and Saturday nights through
October.

,

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Performing Live

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