Readers, I am feeling powerfully led to continue writing about my music and its past, present, and future. What a winding and somewhat strange journey is has been up to now. Obviously, the hands of God have been carrying me when I've been too fatigued to walk -- even before I accepted His only begotten son as my Lord and Savior...
The Lost Horizon on Thompson Rd. in DeWitt, New York is a nightclub that I had played literally hundreds of times through the 1980's into the mid 1990's. In 1982, while with the band ETV, the Lost Horizon stage was my stomping ground every Tuesday night from April of that year through August. ETV also billed at the LH with popular central New York acts Joe Whiting and the Bandit Band and Screen Test. Additionally, We were privileged to open for major label acts 805 and Duke Jupiter at the popular aforementioned night spot. After the breakup of ETV, Mox Nix, (there was another group in New York City with the same name), The Wate, Carnaby Towers, and both incarnations of Groovetown Fire Department were Jim Yackel fronted bands that were frequently booked to play the Lost Horizon.
Yes, I was carried by the Lord through those years chasing the Rock and Roll Dream. He foreknew that I would one day come to Him, and in that our Lord God kept me from experiencing the great success in the secular music business that I so fervently pursued and desperately craved. Had any of my 1980's or 1990's musical endeavors led to the signing of a major label recording contract, I firmly believe that my life would have met a tragic result. This writer would have followed a demonic tour guide -- staggering and stumbling off of that metaphorical Erie Canal towpath and into a crawl on my hands and knees down a broken glass strewn road on a deceptively glamorous trip into a lost horizon. I shudder to think about where the ambitious yet immature and easily influenced young man that I was would have ended up.
Indeed, the money and the fame that could have resulted from what almost was would have been terrific. But, I would have lacked the responsibility and spiritual fortitude to properly handle that success. Yes, there was interest from major record labels in the Wate, my solo incarnation as "Jim Jamz" in 1988, and in Groovetown Fire Department -- but ultimately nothing ever came of these overtures. Thank you, Lord that you kept me on the towpath that led to where I am today and where I am heading tomorrow! Thank you, that even before I was saved, you were intervening in this young man's life, steering his steps away from that hazy horizon on the literal land of the lost.
"Ah, but those old songs were so good" I have been told by some. "She's So Extreme" would have been a big hit, so it has been said. Folks ask, "Don't you miss those great old songs like Dewberry Sunstrip, Conviction, Walk On The Sky, and Laughing At Your Life? Sure, they were good songs. But, if God had wanted any of them to be hits, they would have been. It has been suggested that I remake some of the old, secular catalog. Indeed, it's tempting, but that's just it -- it's temptation that won't lead to anything prosperous I'm sure.
The world is moving fast, time is ticking by in hyper-seconds, and Jesus is coming back for His believers so very soon. In the meantime, I'll keep walking and jogging the real Erie Canal towpath as it stretches through Camillus, Warners, and Memphis -- knowing that there is a very finite number left of those walks and jogs, and only our Heavenly Father knows that number. Analogously, I'll walk that metaphorical Erie Canal towpath that keeps turning up in these recent installments of Jim's View. It's that towpath that leads me away from lost horizons and instead to the Promise Land. The music I'll make will be in evangelism of our Holy, Triune, God. Sure, I'll stumble, stagger, and fall from time to time, but the Holy Spirit picks me up and leads me on because it is by grace that I am saved and not by works.
This earthly life is a journey, and what a journey it has been up to now. What kind of journey are you on? Where are you walking? Is there a limp in your walk? I hope to encounter you on the towpath and I'll share a song and a story. I'll very much appreciate your company and likewise, I'll do my best to be a friend to you. The towpath I'm walking goes one way, and that is away from lost horizons and forward toward that Promise Land. Please come walk along with me.
In Christ's Service,
Jim
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