Jimmy Griffin
James Arthur Griffin (August 10, 1943 – January 11, 2005) was an American singer, guitarist and songwriter, best known for his work with the 1970s soft rock band Bread. He won an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1970 as co-writer of "For All We Know".
This article is about the musician. For other people with the same name, see James Griffin (disambiguation).
Jimmy Griffin
James Arthur Griffin
August 10, 1943
Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.
Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.
January 11, 2005 (aged 61)
Franklin, Tennessee, U.S.
- Singer
- guitarist
- songwriter
- Vocals
- guitar
1963–2005
Early life[edit]
Griffin was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and grew up in Memphis, Tennessee. His musical training began when his parents signed him up for accordion lessons. He attended Kingsbury High School in Memphis and Dorsey and Johnny Burnette were his neighbors and role models. After the Burnette brothers moved to Los Angeles, California to further their music careers, Griffin went there to visit them, and managed to secure a recording contract with Reprise Records.
Career[edit]
Solo performing and songwriting[edit]
His first album, Summer Holiday, was released in 1963. He had small roles in two films, For Those Who Think Young (1964) and None but the Brave (1965).
In the 1960s, Griffin teamed with fellow songwriter Michael Z. Gordon to write songs for such diverse singers as Ed Ames, Gary Lewis, Bobby Vee, Brian Hyland, The Standells, Lesley Gore, Sandy Nelson and Cher. The pair won a BMI award for "Apologize" sung by Ames in 1968.
Griffin met Robb Royer through Maria Yolanda Aguayo (Griffin's future wife). The two hit it off immediately and became life-time collaborators both as performers and writers. Griffin was a staff writer with Viva Publishing and managed to get them to hire Royer as his co-writer in 1967. Viva was resistant to hiring Royer and instead wanted Griffin to write with another staff writer with the company. According to Royer, Griffin convinced Viva to hire Royer by threatening "I will be writing with him. Do you really want to give away half the publishing on all those songs?".[1] James Griffin sang songs that were featured in a few episodes of the TV series Ironside in the late sixties.
Death[edit]
Griffin died of complications from cancer on January 11, 2005, at his home in Franklin, Tennessee, after undergoing treatment for several months; he was 61 years old. He was survived by his wife Marti, daughters Katy and Alexis, sons Jamey and Jacob, granddaughters Laura and Lilli and grandsons Gryffyn and Max.[5]