Meet Jim Madsen

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jim Madsen. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Jim, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?
I grew up in Iowa where the work ethic was ingrained in you at an early age. If you’re not early, you’re late.

It was also there that I learned that the line in your job description that says “other duties as assigned” is a broad umbrella and at no time should you ever utter the line “that’s not my job”.

The other thing I learned is that we are all in sales. We can be in accounting, production, engineering, whatever, but we are all in sales. When we have an interaction with the public, we are the representative of our company, whether we like it or not. And the public just us AND the company we work for based on those interactions. We always have an opportunity to promote our brand.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
“When I was a kid, early on my own I took the highway to be my home
The blues overtook me
When I was a little child
You know fast women and whiskey
Made this poor boy wild”
– Charlie Musselwhite

The blues started early with Jimbo “Big Train” Madsen from when he first picked up a guitar when his age was still counted in single digits. The music manifest in different ways through the years, but the one thing that remained constant in everything he played was the bedrock of the blues.

The start of the Loco Motives can be traced back to 2010 when percussionist Mike “Pinebox” Lander joined Madsen on stage for a Norman Music Festival event, and the two have shared the same stage ever since. Add in the solid bass of Shawn “Roll Tide” Aaron, a former touring musician, and the harmonica gymnastics of Bill “Top Dog” Cummins, and you have one kick ass blues band.

Big Train and the Loco Motives music is deep seated in the roots of the blues, due in part to annual pilgrimages to the cradle of the blues in the Mississippi Delta. There they hear the whispers of Charlie Patton, Robert Johnson, Son House, and Bukka White as they soak up the mojo that is palatable in streets, juke joints, and graveyards.

Big Train and the Loco Motives play what they coined “Red Dirt Blues”. It’s blues flavored by the red soil of Oklahoma, but always in homage to the blues artists who came before them. They cover everything from traditional Delta Blues to Texas Boogie-Woogie, from the south side of Chicago Blues to the Jump Blues of the west coast.

And while you can’t hide behind “3 chords and the truth”, their love and enjoyment of the music is on full display.
Sure, it may be hard to nail them down other than they totally enjoy keeping the clues alive, it’s guaranteed that everyone who shows up in the audience will also enjoy the show.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
SKILL #1 – Admitting when you were wrong or made a mistake. SKILL #2 – Care about the process, not the outcome.
SKILL #3 – Do it right the first time.

KNOWLEDGE – having a deep seated knowledge of the history of the blues, and doing something everyday to keep the blues alive.

If you knew you only had a decade of life left, how would you spend that decade?
The hardest thing we are facing is going at it alone without management or a booking agency. We are self managed and book our own shows and that limits the venues and festivals we can get ourselves into.

Contact Info:

Image Credits
Photo Credit: Matthew Stratton Photography

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