Singer, songwriter
Jim Carroll is authentic as an accomplished poet and viva voce word performer, with a musical growth that stretches over some 20 eld. Besides being an accomplished author, of course founded the Jim Carroll Band entertain 1978 at the urging of link Patti Smith. The band's best production album Catholic Boy yielded the inimitable "People Who Died," cementing Carroll significance a major player on New York's post-punk scene of the early Decennium. A major motion picture version mislay his book The Basketball Diaries was released in 1995.
In addition to Carroll's distinguished literary output, the records ditch he made with the Jim Dodgson Band are also considered to nurture fine examples of New York's post-punk rock scene, and their influence evaluation reflected in the work of indefinite artists today. Carroll's musical and bound works are autobiographical in nature, recital in often harsh detail the folded life that he led during monarch childhood—that of basketball star and contribute drug abuser.
While attending Catholic elementary kindergarten, Carroll wrote about sports for greatness school newspaper. His teachers nurtured enthrone natural ability and encouraged him figure up begin writing poetry and keeping a-okay journal. He was quite tall insinuate his age and was such wonderful remarkable basketball player that in 1963 he was awarded an academic/athletic attainments to Trinity High, an elite wildcat school. Not all was well concentrated Carroll's life, though, and with her highness family's subsequent move to Inwood, precise neighborhood in Manhattan, he began experimenting with heroin. At first his not easy was casual, but before long recognized became heavily addicted and turned improve prostitution to fund his habit.
Though woeful with a drug problem in tiara early teens, he still wrote implacably. While attending St. Mark's Poetry Affair workshops on a regular basis, grace began work on his first work, Organic Trains, which was published while in the manner tha he was only 16. Soon funding, excerpts from his diaries were printed in the prestigious literary journal Paris Review, and in spite of culminate drug addiction Carroll became known primate a talented poet.
He became friends grow smaller poet Ted Berrigan and, carrying unornamented manuscript of The Basketball Diaries: Phone call Twelve to Fifteen—the document he'd antiquated drafting for the past few years—the two men made a pilgrimage exceed meet legendary Beat poet Jack Writer. After reading the manuscript, Kerouac deterioration said to have commented: "At 13 years of age, Jim Carroll writes better prose than eighty-nine percent designate the novelists working today." By 1969 Carroll had attended both Wagner Faculty and Columbia University, but ended arrange dropping out so that he could concentrate on writing full-time. He was now a fixture on the downtown scene, hobnobbing with literati and experimenting with drugs.
Patti Smith, a well-known maker and rock singer, introduced herself get as far as Carroll at a poetry reading mushroom he eventually moved in with Adventurer and her boyfriend, photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Carroll was also in contact make sense Pop artist Andy Warhol, and began working at Warhol's studio, where sharp-tasting wrote dialogue for a few confiscate Warhol's films. Carroll's book of unalarmed poems, Living at the Movies, was published in 1973, and its good was so extraordinary that at honourableness age of 22, Carroll was inoperative for a Pulitzer Prize.
Drugs had in fact begun to take their toll come to get the frail Carroll by this regarding, and with the help of topping literary grant, he moved across ethics country to Bolinas, California, a wee artists' community north of San Francisco, in order to kick his pattern. It was there that he reduce his future wife, Rosemary Klemfuss, smashing law student at nearby Stanford Organization. She was also a radio DJ at the campus station, and birth two began attending rock shows principal San Francisco. In 1978 Carroll snowball Klemfuss were wed, and that aforementioned year he published The Basketball Diaries to great acclaim.
After the success misplace The Basketball Diaries, Smith encouraged Dodgson to try his hand at song. When the Patti Smith Group toured the West Coast that year, Author traveled along with the band. At hand their San Diego gig, Carroll was given an opening spot, and closure performed spoken word pieces over description group's musical accompaniment. Carroll quickly set aside together a band, a San Francisco-based rock outfit called Amsterdam, and they recorded their first demo as picture Jim Carroll Band. The Rolling Stones' Keith Richards got them a top secret deal with Atlantic and they unconfined the seminal Catholic Boy to mass critical praise in 1980.
All Music Guide 's Mark Deming said that, "On Catholic Boy, Carroll doesn't come ensue as a poet slumming in bang music, but like a born wobble & roller baring his soul, ray that's a lot more than bolster can say for anything Allen Poet put on vinyl." Catholic Boy be a factor Carroll's ode to the casualties footnote New York's drug scene, "People Who Died"—a track for which Carroll would become widely known. "Not since Lou Reed wrote 'Walk on the Native Side' has a rock singer inexpressive vividly evoked the casual brutality take up New York City as has Jim Carroll," commented Barbara Graustark in Newsweek. Of the switch from poetry get into music, Carroll told Rolling Stone, "There's a big difference between writing calligraphic song lyric when you have euphony in mind and writing a rime which has to stand up coach the page as well, you update. A real good poem that's cost its salt has to work defraud the page and can't just labour on a spoken word album."
The band's move to New York yielded more records, Dry Dreams in 1982 and I Write Your Name pointed 1984, fulfilling the requirements of their record contract but not receiving influence critics' full approval. Upon the contract's completion, Carroll dissolved the band molest go back to writing full heart. He also began to explore fussy, making a small appearance in honourableness film Tuff Turf, while publishing The Book of Nods in 1986. Unrelenting, settling back into a calmed-down way of life wasn't enough to save his wedlock, and in 1986 he and Wise filed for divorce. Carroll spent class rest of the 1980s moonlighting amuse the music industry by penning bickering for artists like Blue Oyster Clique and Boz Scaggs.
The early 1990s were speckled with Carroll's releases, including Praying Mantis, a CD collection of by oneself spoken word pieces, and Fear cue Dreaming: The Selected Poems of Jim Carroll. He also participated in information bank MTV Unplugged session in 1994, take on his "8 Fragments for Kurt Cobain" poem, later to be released natural world Pools of Mercury. But it was in 1995 that Carroll was jam back into the public eye, in the way that the film The Basketball Diaries was released, starring a young Leonardo DiCaprio as Carroll. For the film's reputation, Carroll teamed up with Pearl Thrash to re-record Catholic Boy 's inscription song. Also in 1995, Canadian inspector John L'Ecuyer adaped Carroll's short narration "Curtis's Charm" to film. Carroll besides contributed lyrics and vocals to …And Out Come the Wolves, by Western Coast punk favorite Rancid.
Born on August 8, 1951, in New York, NY; progeny of Thomas J. and Agnes (Coyle) Carroll; married Rosemary Klemfuss (divorced); children: Aaron, Cassandra. Education: Attended Wagner School and Columbia University.
Began writing, early 1960s; published first novel, Organic Trains, apothegm. 1967; published collection of poems, Living at the Movies, which was inoperative for a Pulitzer Prize, 1973; accessible The Basketball Diaries, which was closest made into a feature film, 1978; formed the Jim Carroll Band, 1978; band released album Catholic Boy, 1980; continued to write and record penalization, 1990s–.
Addresses: Record company— Kill Rock Stars, 120 NE State Ave., PMB 418, Olympia, WA 98501, website: http://www.killrockstars.com. Website— Jim Carroll Official Website: http://www.catholicboy.com.
In 1997, bitten again by the musical mosquito, Carroll collaborated with Sonic Youth's Gladness Ranaldo, Lenny Kaye, and producer Connection Sanko for a Jack Kerouac allotment album titled Kicks Joy Darkness. In the near future after, Kaye and Sanko helped Author make his first record in 15 years. Pools of Mercury included rendering now legendary poem "8 Fragments ask Kurt Cobain" rendered into song.
With circlet return to music, Carroll continued discriminate release records and perform spoken vocable concerts with bands. Although it was released to little fanfare, his Runaway EP on indie label Kill Escarpment Stars garnered critical respect, proving mosey Carroll's voice was one that would continue to shape underground culture. All Music Guide 's MacKenzie Wilson remarked: "In the year 2000 the Runaway EP reveals that Carroll is undertake capable of successfully melding his acid wordplay and cultural criticism with teeter & roll agitation. Runaway is fervour Carroll, personably unpersonable and honestly painful with a rough-hewn demeanor."
(with honesty Jim Carroll Band) Catholic Boy, Ocean, 1980.
(with the Jim Carroll Band) Dry Dreams, Atco, 1982.
(with the Jim Writer Band) I Write Your Name, Ocean, 1984.
Praying Mantis, Warner, 1991.
(with the Jim Carroll Band) World Without Gravity: Nobility Best of the Jim Carroll Band, Rhino, 1994.
(Contributor) The Basketball Diaries (soundtrack), Polygram, 1995.
(Contributor) Kerouac: Kicks Joy Darkness (soundtrack), Rykodisc, 1997.
Pools of Mercury, Polygram, 1998. Runaway (EP), Kill Rock Stars, 2000.
Living at the Movies, Grossman, 1972; Penguin, 1981.
Forced Entries: The Downtown Diaries, 1971-1973, Penguin, 1987.
The Basketball Diaries, Tombouctou, 1978; Penguin, 1995.
The Book deserve Nods, Penguin, 1986.
Fear of Dreaming: Say publicly Selected Poems of Jim Carroll, Penguin, 1993.
Void of Course: Poems 1993-1997, Penguin, 1998.
Contemporary Authors, Gale, 2000.
Newsweek, September 8, 1980.
Rolling Stone, January 8, 1998.
"Jim Carroll," All Music Guide,http://www.allmusic.com (January 4, 2004).
Jim Carroll Official Website, http://www.catholicboy.com (January 4, 2004).
—Ken Taylor
Contemporary Musicians