Hi, I'm Jim... a songwriter and guitarist living near Atlanta, Georgia. These days I play mostly just for fun, and enjoy exploring multiple genres and increasing my overall appreciation of music, technique, and theory.
In the early 2000's, I was an award-winning acoustic fingerstyle guitarist. If you stumbled across this website looking for my fingerstyle guitar site, an archived version can be found here:
Jim Tozier: Acoustic Fingerstyle Guitar.
As a fingerstyle guitarist, I released three CDs on
Solid Air Records, a Grammy-winning label that specializes in solo acoustic guitar music.
Celtic Guitar is a collection of traditional Irish and Scottish tunes, while
Solo Guitar and
Guitar Pieces mostly feature my original instrumental compositions. I also have an independently released CD,
Castlerea.
In 2006,
Celtic Guitar Solos: Traditional Songs and Airs of Ireland and Scotland, a songbook featuring transcriptions of the tunes from my
Celtic Guitar CD, was published.
If you were looking for more information about my fingerstyle guitar music—or want to chat about music in general—feel free to contact me at
jimtozier@gmail.com.
Now, I'll bet you're wondering about that moose...
"Groove Like a Moose" is borrowed from an idiomatic expression in Finnish (which I enjoy trying to learn in my spare time).
A Finn might say
"Tuo bändi svengaa kuin hirvi!" (That band grooves like a moose!) or
"Tämä biisi svengaa kuin hirvi!" (This song grooves like a moose!) to indicate that it's good—especially if it has a strong beat that makes you want to nod your head or tap your foot.
There's even a Finnish book that collects and explains unusal sayings that uses
Svengaa Kuin Hirvi as the title.
It was a memorable phrase, and one that seemed appropriate for a musician. Especially since I like moose, anyway (my family is originally from Maine).
You might have noticed in the links to my guitars that there's a lot of
red. You might reasonably ask yourself why anyone would want so many guitars in the same color, when there are so many others to choose from.
My very first guitar—given to me by my parents as a Christmas gift in 1983—was a sparkle red Memphis Stratocaster copy that looked just like
this one. I believe Memphis was the house brand at the time for the Music & Arts chain of stores where they bought it. It was a budget-friendly beginner guitar, but to me it was the coolest guitar in the world.
I eventually upgraded to a better guitar, and over the years I've owned many, many different guitars of all types, shapes, and colors. But as I became more and more serious about playing, the vast majority of my guitars were either natural wood or had a sunburst finish—a classic look that I felt suited my serious approach to playing.
Recently, I decided to start playing mostly red guitars as a reminder not to take myself too seriously... to focus on playing for the fun of it, and to recapture the sense of wonder that I felt upon getting my very first guitar.
After building a small collection of guitars, basses and amps over the past couple of years, I decided to pare the collection back to just a few essential guitars and a single amp. While it was fun having a lot of variety, I find that focusing on my favorite gear allows to to spend more time focused on the music itself instead of the equipment, which is always a good thing.
Despite my affinity for eye-catching red guitars, I am very much a traditionalist when it comes to my gear. All of my guitars and amps are current versions of models that were first introduced in the 1940's or 1950's: Gibson J-45 (1942), Fender Telecaster (1951), Fender Twin Reverb (1952), Guild X-350 Stratford (1953), Fender Stratocaster (1954), Gibson ES-335 (1958), and Gibson ES-330 (1959).
Pictured from L to R: Fender Telecaster, Gibson ES-335, Gibson J-45, Guild X-350 Stratford, Fender Stratocaster.
