Playback Field Recordings: Jim Boggia

Widely-lauded, Philly-based singer-songwriter Jim Boggia writes powerful, melodic pop/rock songs that transcend time and place.

Jim Boggia

We've put a modern spin on the early-20th Century practice of field recordings, pioneered by musicologist Alan Lomax and others who ventured out into America's heartland to "capture" authentic music that had yet to be discovered. In the Lomax vein, Playback Editor-in-Chief Erik Philbrook and Deputy Editor Lavinia Jones Wright set out to capture modern music where it lives, breathes and is created. In this latest installment, they ventured to the Lower East Side of Manhattan for a sit-down with pop music maestro Jim Boggia.

Misadventures in Stereo, the third album by Philly-based singer-songwriter fave Jim Boggia, is the work of a consummate pop craftsman, a true believer in a song's capacity to transport listeners beyond the everyday into realms of exquisite beauty and sadness.

With an encyclopedic grasp of folk, pop and rock styles, Boggia injects his personal songs with a timelessness that evokes such iconic musical heroes such as Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, Ray Davies and other great singer-songwriters.

Boggia, who has written with such admirers as Aimee Mann, Jill Sobule, MC5 guitar hero Wayne Kramer and Beach Boys' lyricist Tony Asher, here discusses his new album, a collection of bittersweet songs, recorded like the classic albums of yore, live to analog tape, and with a "Side One/Side Two" approach that demands the listener's complete submersion to fully appreciate it. Boggia also talks about his visit to the famous Abbey Road studios, where he had the opportunity to record with the same gear the Beatles used. He also performs two songs that display his prodigious musical gifts. Enjoy.




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