Jim Reilley broke up The New Dylans and moved to Nashville in 1998, signing a deal as a staff songwriter with Curb Publishing. Before that, in the summer of 1997, Jim put together a demo tape you can listen to here. In his 8 years at Curb, over 45 of Reilley’s songs were recorded by artists including Vince Gill, Hal Ketchum, Jack Ingram, Tim O’Brien, Sam Bush, Claudia Church, Joy Lynn White, Ronna Reeves, Cowboy Crush, Lisa Brokop, Ryan Tyler, Mustang Sally, Lauren Lucas, Susan Haynes, Amy Chappell and many others. In 2003, Reilley released his first solo album “The Return of Buddy Cruel” on Silent Planet Records. Produced by Grammy-winner Don Henry, the album was added to 28 AAA stations and lingered for 20 weeks in the top 25 of the Roots Rock Album Chart in the spring of 2003. Reilley paid a return visit to Acoustic Café, and the album also garnered airplay on BBC Radio 1 in UK, BBC Scotland, Radio Golden Flash in Belgium, Real Roots Café Network in central Europe, and BRTO’s Crossroads in Bergen, the Netherlands, whose host Jos Van Den Boom also placed the album in his top 10 albums of 2003. Performing Songwriter and Paste both ran feature articles on Reilley’s return, and “The Return of Buddy Cruel” also earned rave reviews from Billboard, Puremusic.com, Exclaim! Magazine in Canada, Ctrl.alt.country in Belgium, and Glitterhouse in Germany. Nashville’s local newspaper The Tennessean proclaimed “The Return of Buddy Cruel” one of the top 10 albums of 2003 and the track “Won’t Let You Make A Fool of Me” as one of the top 10 songs of 2003 in their year-end critic’s poll.
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Buy The Return of Buddy Cruel at Amazon Buddy Cruel on Spotify
Reilley recorded a second solo album (“Thank God I’m A Contrary Boy”) in 2004 with Grammy-winner Robert Reynolds (The Mavericks) co-producing and featuring a band consisting of Ken Coomer (Wilco/ Uncle Tupelo), Tom Petersson (Cheap Trick), Jen Gunderman (Jayhawks), Audley Freed (The Black Crowes), Al Perkins (Gram Parsons/Manassas), Paul Deakin (The Mavericks) and David Mead. As of this writing, the album remains unreleased. In January 2010, Reilley’s song “The Man Who Had Everything” was named to BBC Scotland tastemaker Karen Miller’s “Best Of The Decade” list. In November 2011, Reilley was the featured writer in American Songwriter Magazine’s “Nashville Songwriter Series”. In October 2012, Reilley signed a new songwriting deal with Nashville based Rare Spark Media Group.
This album is has some great tracks on it. Some of these can be heard on Jim’s Reverb Nation Play list.
TRACK LISTING:
- Thank God I’m A Contrary Boy
- Pinhole Camera
- Loss Leader
- Complications Of The Game
- After The Falling Trees
- Big Cruel World
- Mr. Happy Sunshine
- Land Of Missed Opportunity
- Trouble On The Tightrope
- Shaky King
- Out Of Nowhere
- Complications Of The Game (Reprise)
- King Of Glue
- Thank God I’m A Contrary Boy
- The Deconstructionist
- Loss Leader (Reprise)
- Happy Never Afters
- Temporary
Currently, Reilley is focusing mostly on producing, primarily on emerging alternative rock, country and Americana artists, playing numerous sessions on bass and continuing to compose original instrumental music for film/television. Reilley also is a member of experimental noise rock avant-garde ensemble The Birdwatcher Experiment as a bass player. Reilley also headed up Grammy nominated Nashville indie label Plowboy Records in 2020. Check out his Spotify Production Reel.
Jim’s official Production website is at: https://producerjimreilley.com/