Hand In Hand

James G. Thompson recorded as Jim Thompson. Between 1980 and 1986 he released two albums and a single on Fox Lake Records, a label run out of 5 Old Sheppard Avenue in Willowdale, in Toronto’s north end. He wrote his own songs, sang, and played guitar and synthesizers. Not much is known about him beyond the records.

His first album, a six-song record pressed to play at 45 RPM, was an ambitious project for an independent release. Thompson produced it with Sebastian Salm, Calvin Sauro and bassist Wesley Miller, and spread the sessions across four studios, six engineers and a dozen other players. Salm also shot the cover and designed the sleeve with him. The same year he put out a single, ‘All Day Love’ backed with ‘Tell Me’.

Sauro was the link to the Sound Kitchen on Weston Road, in Toronto’s northwest corner, which he ran with Hugh Ferguson and guitarist David Moyles. Sauro and Ferguson engineered the Forgotten Rebels’ debut EP Tomorrow Belongs to Us there, Sauro recorded The Government’s Guest List, and in 1982 the studio produced Surrender’s No Surrender EP for Capitol.

Six years later Thompson went back to the Sound Kitchen to make Hand in Hand, co-producing with Ferguson, while Sauro produced two of the tracks. The guitars were gone from the credits. Thompson sang over a Yamaha RX11 drum machine, Sauro and Pier Rubesa played PPG synthesizers, and Randel Coryell played Simmons electronic drums.

-Robert Williston