James "Jim" Hendricks is an American folk music

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

ian. Born in Atkinson, Nebraska

Atkinson, Nebraska

Atkinson, Nebraska is a city in Holt County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 1,244 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Atkinson is located at ....

, Hendricks began playing guitar and lap steel guitar

Lap steel guitar

The lap steel guitar is a type of steel guitar, an instrument derived from and similar to the guitar. The player changes pitch by pressing a metal or glass bar against the strings instead of by pressing strings against the fingerboard....

 in his youth, and began performing publicly while working as a teacher in Omaha, Nebraska

Omaha, Nebraska

Omaha is the largest city in the state of Nebraska, United States, and is the county seat of Douglas County. It is located in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about 20 miles north of the mouth of the Platte River...

 in the early 1960s. One of his shows was attended by Cass Elliot

Cass Elliot

Cass Elliot , born Ellen Naomi Cohen and also known as Mama Cass, was an American singer and member of The Mamas & the Papas. After the group broke up, she released five solo albums. Elliot was found dead in her room in London, England, from an apparent heart attack after two weeks of sold-out...

, who invited Hendricks to join her and Tim Rose

Tim Rose

Timothy Alan Patrick Rose , best known professionally as Tim Rose, was an American singer-songwriter, who spent much of his life in London, England and had more success in Europe than in his native country...

 in the New York folk group The Big 3. The group was successful playing The Bitter End

The Bitter End

The Bitter End is a nightclub in New York City's Greenwich Village. It opened its doors in 1961 at 147 Bleecker Street under the auspices of owner Fred Weintraub. The club changed its name to The Other End during the 1970s...

, touring with comedian Bill Cosby

Bill Cosby

William Henry "Bill" Cosby, Jr. is an American comedian, actor, author, television producer, educator, musician and activist. A veteran stand-up performer, he got his start at various clubs, then landed a starring role in the 1960s action show, I Spy. He later starred in his own series, the...

 and appearing on The Tonight Show

The Tonight Show

The Tonight Show is an American late-night talk show that has aired on NBC since 1954. It is the longest currently running regularly scheduled entertainment program in the United States, and the third longest-running show on NBC, after Meet the Press and Today.The Tonight Show has been hosted by...

.

Hendricks was married to Elliot in 1963 (the couple divorced in 1969). In 1964, Elliot and Hendricks started the folk group The Mugwumps

The Mugwumps

The Mugwumps were a 1960s rock band. The Mugwumps made some recordings in the mid-60s, but the short-lived New York group, formed in 1964, is principally remembered for what its members did after they split up....

, which included Denny Doherty

Denny Doherty

Dennis Gerrard Stephen Doherty was a Canadian singer and songwriter. He was most widely known as a founding member of the 1960s musical group The Mamas & the Papas.-Early career:...

, John Sebastian

John Sebastian

John Benson Sebastian Jr. is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist and autoharpist. He is best known as a founder of The Lovin' Spoonful, a band inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000...

 and Zal Yanovsky

Zal Yanovsky

Zalman "Zal" Yanovsky was a Canadian rock musician. Born in Toronto, he was the son of political cartoonist Avrom Yanovsky. He played lead guitar and sang for the Lovin' Spoonful, a rock band which he founded with John Sebastian in 1964...

. The group lasted eight months before Sebastian and Yanovsky formed The Lovin' Spoonful

The Lovin' Spoonful

The Lovin' Spoonful is an American pop rock band of the 1960s, named to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. When asked about his band, leader John Sebastian said it sounded like a combination of "Mississippi John Hurt and Chuck Berry," prompting his friend, Fritz Richmond, to suggest the name...

 and Doherty and Elliot would become one-half of The Mamas & the Papas

The Mamas & the Papas

The Mamas & the Papas were a Canadian/American vocal group of the 1960s . The group recorded and performed from 1965 to 1968 with a short reunion in 1971, releasing five albums and 11 Top 40 hit singles...

. Hendricks moved to Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 and formed The Lamp of Childhood

The Lamp of Childhood

The Lamp of Childhood was a short-lived American folk rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1966. The band release three singles which failed to chart and disbanded in 1967, but had several notable members.-History:...

, which released three singles on Dunhill Records

Dunhill Records

Dunhill Records was started by Lou Adler, Al Bennett, Pierre Cossette and Bobby Roberts in 1964 as Dunhill Productions, originally for the purpose of releasing Johnny Rivers recordings on Imperial Records. It became a record label in 1965 and was distributed by ABC Records...

 in 1966–67 without success. He improved his songwriting while with the band, and after leaving it penned "Summer Rain", a hit for Johnny Rivers

Johnny Rivers

Johnny Rivers is an American rock and roll singer, songwriter, guitarist, and record producer. His styles include folk songs, blues, and revivals of old-time rock 'n' roll songs and some original material...

, and "Long Lonesome Highway", theme song of the television series Then Came Bronson

Then Came Bronson

Then Came Bronson is a short-lived adventure/drama television series that aired on NBC from 1969 to 1970, and was produced by MGM Television. The series, created by Denne Bart Petitclerc, began with a movie pilot on Monday, March 24, 1969. The series was greenlit for one year and began its first...

.

Hendricks eventually moved to Nashville, Tennessee

Nashville, Tennessee

Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...

 in the 1970s and began touring with family and writing contemporary Christian music

Contemporary Christian music

Contemporary Christian music is a genre of modern popular music which is lyrically focused on matters concerned with the Christian faith...

. Hendricks plays guitar, mandolin

Mandolin

A mandolin is a musical instrument in the lute family . It descends from the mandore, a soprano member of the lute family. The mandolin soundboard comes in many shapes—but generally round or teardrop-shaped, sometimes with scrolls or other projections. A mandolin may have f-holes, or a single...

, dobro

Dobro

Dobro is a registered trademark, now owned by Gibson Guitar Corporation and used for a particular design of resonator guitar.The name has a long and involved history, interwoven with that of the resonator guitar...

 and autoharp

Autoharp

The autoharp is a musical string instrument having a series of chord bars attached to dampers, which, when depressed, mute all of the strings other than those that form the desired chord. Despite its name, the autoharp is not a harp at all, but a chorded zither. -History:There is debate over the...

 and has recorded over 50 albums spanning a variety of styles, mainly Americana

Americana (music)

Americana is an amalgam of roots musics formed by the confluence of the shared and varied traditions that make up the American musical ethos; specifically those sounds that are merged from folk, country, blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll and other external influential styles...

, country

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

 and contemporary Christian, including several instrumental

Instrumental

An instrumental is a musical composition or recording without lyrics or singing, although it might include some non-articulate vocal input; the music is primarily or exclusively produced by musical instruments....

 albums for Benson Records

Benson Records

Benson Records was founded by Bob Benson & John T. Benson, beginning as the John T. Benson Music Publishing Company in 1902. The record label started out as Heart Warming Records and would come to house labels such as Impact Records, Greentree Records, RiverSong, StarSong and Home Sweet Home...

and later Maple Street Music, a label he co-founded in 1996.

Sources