JIM PELLINGER BIO

Jim Pellinger’s latest single is his fifteenth, “Follow Setting Suns”. 

It’s about getting in your car and out on the highway, rolling down the windows and turning it up LOUD. 

It’s about the wind blowing through your hair, following the road wherever it takes you.

It’s about undoing your mistakes and leaving them all behind.

It’s about escape.

It’s about freedom.

As a live performer, Jim Pellinger has played colleges, clubs, coffeehouses, and festivals in the US and Central America. Performing solo on guitar, vocals, and live loops, Jim creates layers of sounds and vocal harmonies, and has a unique ability to relate to a crowd, often drawing the whole audience into his live “band” for a communal sing-along (or shout-along as the case may be).

Minneapolis-based singer-songwriter Jim Pellinger’s music charts a course set by his influences, the Beatles, first and foremost. But as a reviewer of his Knives & Bleeding EP noted, “His sound and method are that of, say, Tom Petty or maybe Elvis Costello albeit he sounds like neither.” Another reviewer of Jim’s first release, the cassette-only “All Dressed Up And All Stressed Out” heard “strains of John Hiatt, Squeeze, R.E.M., and a little bit of Simon and Garfunkel within Jim’s songs”.

He’s been an annual performer at the Minnesota State Fair since 2006, and he’s played Twin Cities venues such as The Fine Line, The Caboose, The Amsterdam Bar and Hall, among many others. Jim has also been featured on New York Yankees and Minnesota Twins pregame shows, and even got a song, Circle Me Bert,  in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

When the pandemic hit in spring of 2020 Jim launched his "Quarantine Cafe" live stream, bringing his music to the world when live music venues were shut down and people were shut in. “It is such a different thing performing in an empty room in front of a little camera, as opposed to in a roomful of people,” says Jim. “It took a lot of getting used to. But there was nothing else you could do in terms of live performing. And I think people appreciated it, because they were stuck in the same situation. People actually thanked me for doing it, so that was a great feeling.”

A fiercely dedicated do-it-yourselfer, Jim records and releases albums, EPs, and singles on his own label, Door To Door Music. He designs the cover art, shoots and edits the videos, builds the website, and books the shows. 

Said Bill Snyder of the music magazine The Squealer: "If you still believe that the virtues of hard work are more important than money (and even if you still need to be convinced) the proof is on the tape."