Facing the music with Doug James
For Doug James, the joy in music is not being on stage, it’s in writing the perfect song.
Tall and thin, with a shock of dark hair and black attire, James cuts a shy figure. While he likes getting up on stage and performing, being a star was never in his DNA.
“I never did much to court the spotlight. It’s a pain in the butt," he said. "I’d rather stay behind the scenes. I always enjoyed having a private life."
A native of Cambridge, Md., James began playing piano at age 4, when he played his parents’ upright piano.
“My eyes came up to the keyboard level, and I was just poking around. So my folks got me piano lessons,” he said. “I wrote my first song when I was 6 years old. I think I knew at that point that I wanted to be a songwriter.”
James’ parents moved to Rehoboth Beach when he was still a kid, and he considers Rehoboth his home.
“Once you get sand in your shoes, it’s hard to get it out. At one point, I was going to move to Nashville, but it’s a long way to the beach,” James said.
The beach has served as inspiration for his music.
“There’s one song called ‘September Rain,’ that’s about the beach. I try to catch as many sunrises and sunsets as I can.”
After his mother died, James wanted to be closer to his father and moved to the Rehoboth area permanently. James attended St. Andrew's School, a private school in Middletown.
As an adult, James got his own record deal with a label called Big Tree that sent him to Nashville. He recorded an album there, but it was shelved. After that, he moved to New York City and became a staff writer for CBS Songs and EMI.
“Everyone should live in New York City for a few years. The competition was fierce. There’s no better feeling than to have a song come out holding water. Then when it gets cut? It was a wonderful feeling,” he said.
Artists such as Dionne Warwick, Cher, Chaka Khan and Joe Cocker, among others, have recorded James’ songs. When asked about other artists interpreting his work, James said it was a double-edged sword.
“Sometimes it was wonderful, and sometimes I wondered what happened. That was usually with the production more than with the singer,” he said.
James found his biggest success with the song “How Am I Supposed To Live Without You,” which he co-wrote with a then-up and coming artist named Michael Bolton. Laura Branigan’s 1983 version topped the Billboard Adult Contemporary charts, and when Bolton himself recorded it, in 1989, it spent two weeks on top of the Billboard Hot 100 charts.
James said the song was the first song he and Bolton wrote together. All told, they wrote more than 20 songs, and James said the two have remained friends to this day
“Michael and I went into a room and told jokes for 45 minutes to break the ice," James said of their first writing sessions. According to Bolton's autobiography, he and James would work through the night on songs, often having to be thrown out by security guards.
James said "How Am I Supposed To Live Without You" took about three sessions to come together. The song has passed the 4 million performances mark, something James said he was grateful for.
As a student at St. Andrew's, James met Larry Walker, his music teacher, who became his mentor. Walker later taught at the Music School of Delaware in Wilmington. Walker died in May, and James held two weekends of events in Wilmington earlier this month to honor his memory.
James hosted a songwriting workshop Nov. 7 and played a free concert at the school featuring selections from his forthcoming album, "All Roads."
“His family asked me to give the eulogy, and that meant the world to me,” James said. “He taught me so much about music. He was my assistant baseball coach on top of that. Just an all-around wonderful guy. Incredible musician. Played a hell of a sax.”
James said Walker taught him about music theory and new ways to approach music.
James’ new album teams Cape Region musical royalty, with James, who has played Rehoboth Beach Jazz Festival on several occasions, playing with Keith Mack, the Scandal guitarist who is now a fixture in the area. James said Mack co-produced the album, and the two paired up for the benefit show.
“It’s just the two of us. We make a lot of noise,” James said.
He said the album was a chance to revisit songs he wrote years ago but never performed himself.
“A lot of what I thought were good songs got left in the dust. The best way to get them out there is to sing them myself,” James said.
James spends most of his time writing and producing and pursuing other interests. A human and animal rights advocate, James has served on the Delaware Human Relations Committee for 20 years as well as several animal rights boards including the Humane Society and the ASPCA. He said his album would include a song he wrote about animals.
