Before the records and JUNOs, Colin James was a Saskatchewan kid sneaking into clubs to play the blues
A young Colin James appears on the cover of Playing the Changes: A Musician’s Memoir, which traces his Saskatchewan childhood and early years as a musician before the release of his debut album in 1988.
Photo credit: Penguin Random House Canada.
Long before Colin James had eight JUNO Awards and multi-platinum record sales, he was a Saskatchewan teenager playing clubs he wasn't legally old enough to enter.
Those years are the subject of Playing the Changes: A Musician's Memoir, James's new book arriving Sept. 22 from Random House Canada. The memoir ends just before the 1988 release of his self-titled debut album, keeping the focus on the years when Colin James Munn was learning to play and finding his way into the Prairie music scene.
James grew up in Saskatchewan as the son of two social workers, in a household where records were part of daily life. His childhood also took him to folk clubs in Regina and Quaker gatherings his family attended around the province. He learned guitar on his older brother's instrument by playing along with vintage blues records, later taking up mandolin and penny whistle and sitting in with folk musicians considerably older than he was.
By his teens, James was performing at venues around Saskatchewan and in Winnipeg despite being under the legal age to enter them. He was playing alongside older musicians and getting an unusually early education in working clubs, years before his recording career began.
Then came a Saskatoon show with Stevie Ray Vaughan.
James was 18 when he was given one day's notice to put together a band and open for Vaughan. The performance led to a friendship between the two musicians, and Vaughan became a mentor to James. He also encouraged the young Colin Munn to use his first two names professionally: Colin James.
The memoir goes further back into James's family life as well. His parents separated and eventually divorced, and James writes about responding as a child by compulsively cleaning the house in an attempt to impose some order on what was happening around him. Those memories sit alongside his early musical education, including the records he heard at home and the older musicians who let him join them before he was even a teenager.
James's self-titled debut arrived in 1988. He has since released 21 studio albums, won eight JUNO Awards and 31 Maple Blues Awards, and was appointed to the Order of British Columbia in 2024. He now lives in Vancouver.
With the memoir's release approaching, James has begun revisiting those earlier years publicly. On the Sept. 18 episode of The Jann Arden Podcast, he discussed his childhood and family, the beginning of his music career and the process of writing Playing the Changes.
The book arrives Tuesday, Sept. 22, in the middle of a Canadian tour that begins Sept. 21 in Uxbridge, Ont. James heads to Toronto the following night for the official launch at the El Mocambo, presented with Another Story Bookshop and Random House Canada, before travelling to Ottawa Sept. 23.
The western dates bring the book back through some of the same Prairie cities that figure in James's early story. He will appear at McNally Robinson Booksellers in Winnipeg on Sept. 24 and Calgary's DJD Dance Centre Sept. 25, followed by Victoria Sept. 27.
On Sept. 29, James will be back in Regina for an evening at The Exchange devoted to Playing the Changes. The teenager who once had to get into Prairie clubs before he was legally old enough to be there will return to his hometown to talk about the years before anyone knew him as Colin James.
