Jim Wake
Front man Jim Wake is a transplanted American with an abiding passion for old time blues, bebop jazz, and the lyric that tells a story and reveals a barbed or poignant truth. He sings in a melodic growl, and plays guitar and blues harp. Short in stature, he is not averse to telling tall tales for narrative effect.
Jim grew up in Niagara Falls, New York and started playing guitar as a teenager but took a number of detours and only joined his first band a couple years past his 40th birthday. For 20 years, he was frontman for Jim Wake & Sleepwalker and later a three-man spinoff called Katvanger. He penned most of the material for both bands, and continues to write songs that beg, borrow and steal unapologetically from the icons of jazz and blues and a long line of rock ’n’ roll, rhythm & blues, country & western, gospel, Latin, and African greats.
Jimding, his latest project, is a rootsy trio - Jim on lead vocals, joined by two veterans of rock and blues – bass player Nico Hart and percussionist John den Exter.
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Nico Hart
Nico Hart is a bass player who has made his mark over the years in numerous bands and various genres from sixties rock and pop to bossanova, from kaseko to salsa, and from blues to bluegrass.
Inspired as a teenager by the Beatles, he started out on guitar but gradually his interest shifted to bass guitar – after all, he observes, someone had to do it. Nico anchors Jimding with his acoustic bass guitar, and along with percussionist John de Exter, sings backup vocals as well. Somehow, he also manages to find the time to play bass in Hollands Blauw, a band dedicated to proving that Dutch is a perfectly suitable language for the blues.
John den Exter
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John den Exter has been pounding away on drums of one sort or another since he was a child. He started playing in bands in the sixties – first Indo-rock, moving on to rhythm & blues and then zydeco and cajun. Following a ten-year sojourn in the United States, he developed an affinity for Americana and, mindful of the adage “less is more” he traded his drum kit for the cajon.
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In addition to keeping the rhythm, John loves to sing, and together with Nico Hart, he provides the characteristic Jimding backing vocals.