Bob James - Keeping Love Alive
Limited Edition Cassette
This album and limited edition cassette is a collection of previously unreleased music from Bob’s archives. Throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s, Bob played in several bands - most notably a two album run with Montrose on Warner Brothers Records. Though he continued writing and recording into the early ‘90s, much of his solo work never saw an official release. Reach Out—featured in the 1981 animated film Heavy Metal—was recorded by Cheap Trick. A handful of South Bay artists also performed and recorded his songs, though none of those renditions ever gained widespread recognition or commercial success.
Keeping Love Alive is a curated selection of Bob’s demo recordings and sound bites, drawn from his extensive collection of cassette tapes. This is the completion of a project the two of us started together 15 years ago but never completed. Bob believed some of his best work could find a home in film and TV or be reimagined and recorded by younger artists. For me, the music on these tapes holds a special kind of magic—a direct connection to my childhood and that early relationship with my father. I was a young boy when he was making this music, and largely unaware of the depth and scope of his creative process until after he was gone. Sharing it now as a reimagined album gives me both a sense of closure and a solid helping of pride. It feels good finally share the powerful work he did as a young rock n roll father.
Many of these recordings exist only on 40-year-old cassettes, a format not well known for longevity. The specifics of how, when, or where these tracks were recorded—and with whom—are largely a mystery. The recordings feel like a transmission from another time, full of imperfections and era-specific sounds.
In addition to digital release, I’m producing a very limited run of cassettes. Each will be come with a vibrant booklet filled with photos and music memorabilia from Bob’s collection.
Hope you enjoy the music.
~ Brendan Willing James
Music Man
A Chron-Audio Lookbook Through Bob’s Music Career
by Brendan Willing James
Bob in studio working on the album “Jump On It” by Montrose
The sound of Dad’s old cassettes will forever be intertwined with my memories of him—their scent, too. Layered, effect-drenched vocals, gated drum machines bouncing from left to right across the stereo field, warbling, hissing, cutting in and out—sonic artifacts underscoring a deeply personal and prolific family history of lo-fi obsession. Pure nostalgia—thin rolls of magnetic tape, iconic plastic casings, handwritten titles and notes—compact records of creative exploration, love, and youthful vitality. Proof of sustained effort in a golden era of music that as a child I was blissfully unaware of.
It was the ’80s. I might have been out in the front yard of our Torrance house, pushing die-cast eighteen-wheelers through the dirt or doing jumps on my BMX bike. Or inside, building LEGO towns. Or arm-flying model space shuttles with working cargo bay doors. I had my little world, and Dad had his bigger, adult world. The music business belonged to him alone. I had no real understanding of what he was up to.
For Bob, every word was a song, and every song an obsession. His magic lay in his ability to convey everything—tone, emotion, expression—all wrapped in melody. Odd phrases and misheard words were like toy boxes for his creativity. He would sift through them, plucking out a few, shaping them into something new, something deeply felt.
Since he passed, I’ve been sifting through his things and preserving much of the analog to digital. Scanning slides, photos and memorabilia, and digitizing reels and tapes. Of particular interest are a box of cassette tapes containing demos and unreleased music. These tapes are where he stored and safeguarded his energy, magnetically preserved for nearly half a century. There’s a personal story of a dynamic relationship with my father that runs alongside a deeper story of a standout performer and star-crossed songwriter—a tale I find as fascinating, remarkable and as deeply human as they come.
This project is a number of things—a work in progress, a labor of love, a passion project, family therapy, a memoir—and maybe most significantly; a resolution of a project Dad and I started work on together 15 years ago but couldn’t sustain. I can’t know the reasons that he stood in his own way, but I do know he wanted his music to be heard, and his story known.
One of the songs I didn’t hear until I started going through his cassettes is called Keeping Love Alive. It’s a great song, though the actual recording is pretty weathered. I love the lyrics too, particularly the chorus:
“I didn’t fall I just missed my mark
It’s crazy not to try
A fire that lives in a broken heart
Is keeping love alive”
These lines have served as a guide for me as I work on this project, so it feels like a fitting title for a posthumous solo album, or a memoir, or both. Sometimes I put it down for months, there’s no deadline and no real hurry. The process has been cathartic, healing in many ways. Somehow it’s brought the two of us closer than we probably could have been while he was here. Death is funny that way, I’ve learned.
At Dad’s in Torrance, CA, circa 1987.
Shatterminx - 1973
Bob James, Michael Zuliani (guitar), Brian Asher (bass, cello), and Marc Droubay (drums). Shatterminx’s music and lyrics were written by Zuliani and the songs nodded to Zeppelin, Yes, and Traffic. Originally known as Ethan Frome, the band performed on the Sunset Strip and around the South Bay of Los Angeles circa ‘72-73, reforming with the same members as Swan in 1978.
Friend and manager Michael Kelley on Bob’s first meeting with band, via Rock The Nation: Montrose, Gamma, and Ronnie Redefined:
“Michael (Zuliani) was really the architect of everything. He wrote the music, he wrote the lyrics, and to this day, still probably one of the most brilliant lyricists that I’ve ever encountered. His major influences were Pete Sinfield of King Crimson, and Keith Reid of Procol Harum. We’re talking 1972, and the songs were all really long, ten, 12 minutes, lots of different time changes and movements, and the lyrics tended to be kind of theatre of the mind with lots of metaphors. And Mike would just hand Bob a lyric sheet and start playing and Bob just basically picked it up. I don’t know if Mike had vocal melody lines. But Bob just kind of jumped in and we were amazed at the quality of his voice in terms of dynamic range… able to be very soft and sensitive kind of like Jon Anderson from Yes. And then if there was a moment where we really needed him to turn it up like Gillan or Plant, he could go there.”
Montrose - 1975-77
There’s so much more to say about Bob’s story with Montrose, and Martin Popoff’s book Rock The Nation: Montrose, Gamma and Ronnie Redefined gets into some fantastic details about it.
Only a handful of videos exist of Bob performing, all from his time with Montrose. Bill Graham’s legendary Winterland in San Francisco was home turf for Ronnie and the band—it served as both a frequent tour stop and a rehearsal space. With Graham managing them at the time, Winterland became a second home. The surviving live footage includes performances from that stage in 1975, as well as a show at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, NY, in 1976.
The new lineup of Montrose (Version 2) featured Bob James on vocals, Ronnie Montrose on guitar, Alan Fitzgerald on bass, Jim Alcivar on keys, and Denny Carmassi on drums. Fitzgerald eventually departed, leaving a lean, hard-hitting four-piece, with Alcivar pulling double duty on keys and basslines. With Bob as frontman, the band recorded two albums for Warner Bros.: Warner Bros. Presents Montrose! (1975) and Jump On It (1976). They toured extensively across the U.S. supporting rock heavyweights like KISS, Aerosmith, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Eagles, and The Rolling Stones, while occasionally headlining—most notably at Winterland.
Montrose made a brief appearance in the remake of A Star Is Born (1976) starring Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson, and are heard mid-performance as a helicopter lands during the film’s big festival scene.
Bob left the band in 1977 after the Jump On It tour, frustrated with his souring relationship with Ronnie and the lack of access to the creative process.
*Montrose v1 was Sammy Hagar, Ronnie Montrose, Bill Church, and Denny Carmassi.
Swan - 1978~79
Swan was the rebirth of Shatterminx after Bob left Montrose—a new name, new songs, but the same electric energy. They tore through Los Angeles and the Sunset Strip once again, generating real momentum and catching the attention of fans and press alike. Just as things were heating up, Bob accepted an invitation from A&M Records and Peter Frampton to fly to New York and join a new supergroup called Magnet.
Though a few live recordings of Swan exist, the band never made a proper studio album and would never reunite again.
Listen to Swan:
Magnet - 1979
Magnet was a short-lived “supergroup” featuring Bob James (vocals), Les Nichols (guitar), Jerry Shirley (drums), Peter Wood (keys), and Mike Neville (bass). In 1979, they recorded Worldwide Attraction for A&M Records, tracking at The House of Music in West Orange, NJ and overdubbing at The Record Plant and Peter Frampton’s home studio “Bilbo’s Basement” in upstate New York. Frampton and Shirley, former bandmates in Humble Pie, reunited for the project.
The band embarked on a brief East Coast club tour before quietly parting ways. Two songs—including what appears to be the intended title track—were left off the final album. Why they were cut remains a mystery.
As the 1980s approached, so did the rise of The Police, disco, and new wave. With its middling songwriting and dated production, Worldwide Attraction struggled to stand out against the fresh sounds that would soon define the decade.
Bob with Peter Frampton
Private Army - 1980
Private Army was Bob James (vocals/bass), Peter Comita (guitar), Rudy Sarzo (bass), Mike Dauer (drums), and Charles Faris (guitar/production). Leaning heavily into new wave influences—The Cars, and pre-Let’s Dance era Bowie—this project marked a dramatic evolution in Bob’s sound and vocal style, elements of which would carry through his work well into the ’90s. He seemed eager to embrace this new musical direction, yet for reasons unclear, the band never took off. Some clues point to the usual suspects—inter-band conflicts, music industry politics, alcohol, cocaine… classic ’80s stuff.
During this period, Bob and Peter co-wrote Reach Out, an undeniable banger that was soon recorded by Cheap Trick and licensed for the 1981 animated feature film Heavy Metal.
Listen to Private Army:
U.S.S.A - 1982-83
A short-lived Chicago-based act with a cheeky stage presence, this band carried over several Private Army songs into their live set, featuring Pete Comita on guitar and Evan Smith on keys. Bob and Evan would go on to collaborate for years in the South Bay of Los Angeles, but for this particular lineup, no known studio recordings exist—just a single cassette labeled Live in Chicago.
Judging by the stage banter, they were never fully committed to the band’s name, nor did they seem to enjoy their time in Evanston, IL. They explored some different logo designs, though none quite stuck. As for the meaning behind the band's acronym, that’s another mystery—as are the whereabouts of Smith and Comita. Attempts to contact and locate them have so far been unsuccessful.
Listen to U.S.S.A.:
Elements (Machine Shop Band) - 1985
Elements was Bob James (vocals), Lloyd DesRoches (guitar), Carlos Flores (bass), Bob Alvarez (drums)
Picture this: It’s late summer in the year 1985 in the industrial outskirts of Wilmington, CA. The side door of a nondescript metal fabrication shop is cracked open and you hear singing from inside, muffled but powerful. It’s an incredible voice that feels so familiar...but who the hell is it?
Inside, the hulking metal cutters in the back of the shop lie dormant for the night, a diminutive Bob James of San Pedro, CA (by way of Struthers, Ohio) is belting out a chorus idea for a new record. You recognize it now. The voice of mid seventies Montrose, the local Torrance kid who replaced Sammy Hagar and took the big ride. Here he was, ten years on from the band, writing and recording music by night and machining by day.
There's a nostalgic magic in the music, sung with vibrant and guttural urgency. Classic 80s drum machines, big gated snares, dive-bomb guitar solos, dripping wet vocal effects, lush beds of harmonies…the songs sound and feel like they were destined to be beloved hits of the era, if only they had been released to and embraced by the masses.
Making my first record in dad’s machine shop studio