About Jim Witter
It started in the living room of his family home in the late 1960s.
Jim Witter’s mom discovered that her boy not only loved to sing, but even though
he was just four years old, he was really good! With his mom on the piano, Jim
would belt out the Beatles “Yesterday” for just about anyone who would lend an
ear. “I remember clearly singing for the mailman”, Jim recalls. “What the mailman
was doing in our living room, I’ll never know,” he jokes. But for that young boy from
Hamilton, Ontario Canada, music was never a joke. “I was always very serious
about making music my life long career”, he remarks. “Even when I was very young,
I knew in my heart music was my passion. It was always all I ever wanted to do”.
After high school, Jim began performing nightly in a local piano bar where
he learned the tools of the trade when it came to entertaining. His sincere and
warm rapport with an audience began in those smoky bars as he belted out songs
by artists like Elton John, Billy Joel, The Beatles, and many others. During the day
before heading to the show, he would write and record original songs. Eventually,
Jim caught the attention of Sony Music Publishing in Canada. Before long, he had
signed a deal with Sony. That lead to his first original album which was released
in 1993. The album met with rave reviews and lead Jim to landing multiple hits on
Country radio station charts across Canada. A few years later, Jim signed a major
record deal with Curb Records in Nashville, home to Tim McGraw, Wynonna Judd,
and Leanne Rimes. “I loved making records and touring, but all of this came at a
time when my wife, Rebecca, and I were also raising 4 children. Even though it was
exciting, it was tough,” he recalls.
In the early 2000s, Jim created a show that would harken back to his days
in the piano bars— only this show was designed to be performed in a theatre setting.
“The Piano Men” was a multi-media musical trip back to the '70s, featuring the hits
of Billy Joel and Elton John. Jim and his incredible band began performing masterful
recreations of these two artists songs, all the while accompanied by a stunning visual
presentation that took the audience back to that incredible decade.
That show was so successful that theaters asked Jim if he could produce
other shows that featured other artists and decades with the same nostalgic
and heart warming flair. “Feelin’ Groovy-the '60s and the music of Simon and
Garfunkel”, and “The Long and Winding Road-the music of Lennon and McCartney
and the stories behind the songs” are just a few of the follow up smash hit shows that
Jim has produced over the past 20 years. “This great music of the '60s, '70s and
'80s shows no signs of losing its popularity,” Jim points out. “If anything, people are
becoming more nostalgic for those simpler times…no computers, no cell phones, no
social media…music was a bigger part of everyone’s lives back then”.
Now in his 22nd year of touring these nostalgic shows, Jim says that he
enjoys performing more than ever. “Now that my children are pretty much all
grown up, sometimes they join me on the road and perform with me on stage. My
daughter even just signed her first record deal herself, so I’ll be spending some time
on the road with her over the next while too”, he says. “I’m just blessed and very
fortunate to be where I am in my life and to still be making a living doing what I love
most.”