Biography

Who is Jim Anger?

Children's Songs Singer

JIM ANGER is a singer-songwriter, guitar picker, banjo-plunker, and harmonica blower who loves most of all to sing for and with kids! Jim performs a wide range of music with voice, guitar or tenor banjo, strum stick, an echo harp, and several harmonicas. The songs range from country tunes to holiday standards and gospel songs, from both traditional and modern folk songs to children's songs, with his own material thrown into the mix! A railroading or train enthusiast, Jim loves to perform train songs, and has written several, himself. But in a group of performers, he's most often the guy doing songs such as "Frog Went A-Courtin,' " "She'll Be Comin' 'Round The Mountain," the Utah Phillips song, "Daddy, What's A Train?" or the Woody Guthrie classic, "This Land Is Your Land!"

Recording Artist

While Jim's music is always family-friendly, his most recent recording, Rainbow in the Sky, is specifically a family-children's album. Jim has recorded four CDs since 2002. The others include an all- train songs album, The Train's A-Comin,' Then & Now & Again, a collaboration with his brother Mike and son-in-law Tim Herrick, a mix of traditional songs and several written by each of the three guys; and Headin' Out, a CD with a variety of song topics, but certainly including some train tunes! Several of the CDs are sub-titled Jim Anger and Friends, because he tends to draw in many of his musician friends to include in the recordings. Says it always makes the music better!

Jim's musical influences include Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger; The Weavers; Malvina Reynolds; Peter, Paul and Mary; Ian and Sylvia, The Kingston Trio; Bill Staines, Stan Rogers, and Utah Bruce Phillips. Closer to home, those influences include Skip Jones; Larry Penn; and Green Apple Folk Music Society (Appleton, WI) folks such as The Crystal River Trio, Doug Wheeler and Steve Hazell.

While he loves to play songs for and with children, Jim clearly has materia1 suited to all sorts of folks, including "adults" and older adults. Jim has played in various venues, including workshop stages at the Shawano, WI Old Time Music and Crafts Festival, and at the festival's Open Stage events. He's hosted those programs himself a few times! But just as important to Jim are the times when he sings with folks at area nursing homes and retirement facilities. Jim likes to do music with everybody!

Some of that enjoyment of playing with everyone-kids to the elderly- developed from playing for a wide range of folks as a member of two bands, first, Life's Full Circle as the '90's decade began, and then as a part of the band Whistle Junction, --- from 1992 through 1996, which was comprised of Jim and his wife Joan, and Dave and Kathy Tisdale. The group played a wide spectrum of music, but, as the band name implies, included some train songs! Whistle Junction liked to do the nursing and retirement homes more than anything, because the old folks clearly enjoyed the music.

Singer-Songwriter

As a songwriter, Jim has written more than 90 songs; a number of them, naturally, have found their way into his recordings, but the music offered in the albums always includes songs from other sources, such as Utah Bruce Phillips, Bill Staines, the late Malvina Reynolds, and Green Apple's Doug Wheeler.

One of Jim's songs, "The Snow Throw Song," a wintertime parody of David Mallet's "The Garden Song," was published in the Folk Process section of Sing Out Magazine's Winter, 2003 issue, and some of Jim's songs have been heard on the Wisconsin Public Radio program, Simply Folk.

Performer

Jim has performed at children's library programs and at elementary and middle schools, Scout programs, church benefits and picnics, area coffee houses, including Conkey Book Store's Between the Pages and Ecotopia in Appleton, Wisconsin; Something To Do in Shawano, Wisconsin; Beans and Books in Shawano; and The 8th Street Coffee House in Escanaba, Michigan. Jim has also played at New London, Wisconsin's Wolf River Theater, also Shawano's Mielke Theater, where he performed an Earth Day concert in April, 2001. Some of his songs, such as "Away 'Cross the River" and "Keepers of the Earth," illustrate his concern for protecting the Environment.

For many years, since the early '90's, Jim has been a member of the Green Apple Folk Music Society, and has often performed on the Green Apple stage in open mics. He's been a regular performer at the annual Green Apple Winter Holiday concert, where he has occasionally shared some of his own Christmas music. He was asked by Green Apple to join other selected performers or groups in musically celebrating the folk music society's 20-year jubilee in October, 2002.

Educator

Jim has been a Reading and language arts teacher in Wisconsin public schools for nearly thirty years. As a language arts teacher, reading teacher and reading specialist, he has worked with children in every grade level, from kindergarteners to high school seniors. And from time to time, he has incorporated the use of song lyrics and singing, to meet differing objectives, as reading and writing instructional strategies at every grade level!

Jim presented on the topic of using song lyrics to teach reading at the 37th Annual University of Wisconsin Oshkosh Reading Conference, held in October, 2003. An Oshkosh native, Jim earned a Bachelor's degree in Secondary Education from UW Oshkosh in 1971, and received his Master's in Education- Reading from Cardinal Stritch College, Milwaukee, in 1976. He is a past president of both the Mideast and Wolf River Reading Councils, chapters of the Wisconsin State Reading Association.

Currently, Jim is a 4th and 5th grade Title 1 Reading and Language Arts teacher at Keshena Primary School in the Menominee Indian School District. While working on Six Traits Writing skills with all five 4th grade classes during the 2001-2002 school year, Jim got the students and classroom teachers involved in helping him write verses for a song he'd started. The result was the recording of the song with the kids joining Jim in singing! The recording of that song, "Right Back To You," led to the writing of other songs to be included on a children's album. That's how Rainbow in the Sky came to life! Because the kids helped write "Right Back To You," adding verses (or details) to support the chorus (main idea!), if the song was going to be on a CD, Jim and his wife Joan felt any proceeds from sales of the album should somehow go "Right Back" to the kids. The Menominee Reservation Toys for Tots program seemed a perfect fit! Proceeds from the trains songs album, The Train's A-Comin,' also go to charity-to a camp at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin for children stricken with cancer. (Money from sales of the other CDs helps keep Jim in guitar strings!)

Poet

Jim is, by nature, a poet. A song is, after all, a rhyming poem set to music, at least in part. But Jim was really a poet before he became a songwriter, beginning in first grade! He grew up being fascinated with words. Maybe that's why he majored in English and minored in journalism, writing stories for a couple newspapers, the Oshkosh Daily Northwestern and the Appleton Post Crescent, while in college. That is probably also why he became a language arts teacher and later a reading specialist.

Several of Jim's poems have been published by the International Society of Poetry. "Restful Rock," published in America at the New Millennium; "Song For the Children: September, 2001," a song Jim wrote for his students following 9-11, presented in The Best Poems and Poets of 2001; and another poem-song, "Pick Your Guitar, Sing Sure," found in The Best Poems and Poets of 2002. That poem was also recorded in The Sound Of Poetry. (All poems published by the International Society of Poetry). These poems can be found on the Internet at Poetry.com under "Jim Anger." Two others, his song "Away 'Cross the River," a song about protecting Mother Earth, and "The Ancient Ones," a poem about the Menominee Indian Nation, can be found on the same website under "James Anger."

Songwriting Teacher-Guitar Instructor

For several years, Jim has volunteered to teach song writing to youngsters at the annual Shawano-Gresham School District Young Authors Conference. In May, 2003, Jim took a Personal Day from Keshena and performed four 45-minute concerts at the three elementary schools and the middle school for the Shawano-Gresham district. With his reading teaching and performing experience, that's the sort of thing Jim hopes to do much more often-in retirement- some day down the road! For now, he plays when he can, teaches basic guitar to elementary students in the After-School program at Keshena Primary, and teaches guitar for both children and adults out of his home, in his "spare time!"

Member--Children's Music Network

To learn more about working with kids musically, Jim is also a member of the Children's Music Network, an international organization dedicated to education and community-building through music. CMN recognizes children's music as "a powerful means of encouraging cooperation, celebrating diversity, enhancing self-esteem, teaching peace and promoting nonviolence, growing environmental awareness and responsibility, and advocating for social justice."