Amazon Music SpotifyMore about artist BioBack in the mid-’80s, James Sifuentes began writing and recording some pretty goodpop rock. He and Bill, his brother and bandmate, dreamed of getting the songs re-recorded professionally, but life, other interests and careers intervened.Then came more life: age 50, cancer, Hodgkins’s lymphoma. He beat that. Ten yearslater, July 2023, turmoil at the hospital where he had been an executive for 19 yearsresulted in his firing. A few months after that, January 2024, he suffered a heart attackwhile interviewing for his current regional manager position with the Chicago ParkDistrict.He didn’t know about the heart attack until he went to urgent care after the interview.At this point, he tells himself that if he’s going to put out his music, he ought to do it, andby March, he persuades himself to get it done.Then, January 2025, disaster for the second January in a row. He is diagnosed withstage 4 pancreatic cancer, but now he is seriously committed to putting out his music.And the result, a year later, is “Summertime,” the single, a jazzy pop-rock anthem to theseason, and Summertime, a 12-track album of some pretty good pop rock transformedinto seriously good pop rock.It’s all under the name Sifuentes. It features Jim, his brother Bill on guitar, and MattRiggen, a multi-talented colleague from the park district, on drums, brass and piano.“Overall, it’s pop rock, but there’s some stuff that fits in different genres.”The single features the rocking guitar and beat you would expect from someoneinfluenced by the Beatles, especially John Lennon and Paul McCartney, funkadelic,(Parliament) and R&;B.And it also has some swinging brass work too.“The ’60s, I was only a little kid,” said Sifuentes. “My dad actually bought Beatlesalbums, and we were just listening to them and, yeah, they became it.”Growing up, living and working in Chicago, “Summertime,” to him, means the end of theice, snow and cold of winter and the “beauty, the energy when people get to go out,wear shorts, barbecue, head to the beach and enjoy a different feeling.”“It’s just trying to capture that feeling and make people feel good when they listen to thesong.”He has been writing, composing, playing and recording music ever since he and hisbrother were teens. At one time, he wanted to do that full time.“We just didn’t pull the trigger, my brother and I. We wanted to get into the studio torecord these songs. We wanted to hear what they would have sounded likeprofessionally.”After the heart attack last year, “I said, ‘I’m gonna get these songs done.’ In March oflast year, I said I’m gonna put out an album, so I set the goal.”But doubts set in: already 60, health not good, and though the music he had written andrecorded was good, he hadn’t been playing much, or singing.Somewhere in here, his daughter Amanda says to him about “Summertime,” which hewrote in his 40s, “I love that song, Dad. You should finish it.”“And I said, ‘You know what? I’m going to do this album. I will release it aroundsummertime, so, I want that to be the title.”He began work, getting back into musical shape, working over his songs, and byNovember, he was back in the studio.Then January, and this time it’s pancreatic cancer. But, “I’m always one to finish a goal.”Now it’s June, and the album is out.“And I celebrated yesterday,” he said. “My staff here at the park district, we held alistening, they called it a listening event, and they played the album. My brother, Mattand I did some of the songs, five of them, just acoustic versions, but it was really nice.”And that’s the story, he said. The love of music, the talent, the gift, has always beenthere, waiting to be unveiled.That’s what he calls it, an unveiling.“People know I play guitar, kind of, but didn’t know this other part of me, that I couldsing, or I can record, and I compose songs. It’s an unveiling of another part of Jim thatpeople might not know.”He wrote most of the songs when he was 18-25. “The Memory” is about where he grewup, “walking around the park, going to school.” “Searching for Another Day” he wrotewhen he was 18.“Life,” coming more than 30 years later, after the first bout with cancer, “kind ofcomplements that song, saying, like, ‘After your search, this is where you’re at.’”“Will You Be Mine” is R&B, “kind of a stepper.” “Loving You Dear,” “a catchy little clubsong.” The last song, “Yes, It’s Me,” started out as a love song to a woman namedOrquídea, orchid in English. It features a Latin flavor and Sifuentes on guitar.“But it became in many ways more about me, showing everyone that it’s me singing,recording, unveiling parts of me that were hidden, and still living fully.”He wrote other songs for people like him and his brother, people who grew up duringthe same period and listened to The Beatles, Elton John, The...
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