Jim King (saxophonist)

Jim King (born James King, May 5 1942, Kettering, Northamptonshire, England) was an original member of the British rock band, Family. He played saxophone and harmonica, and sang occasional lead vocals on the band's first two albums, "Music in a Doll's House" and "Family Entertainment." King also sang the entire lead vocal on "Observations From a Hill", a song on the latter album.

King formed the Farinas, a blues based rock and roll group, with guitarist Charlie Whitney in Leicester in 1962. He was the group's lead singer until Roger Chapman joined in 1966, at which point the group had begun to perform under the name The Roaring Sixties. The name Family was decided upon later. King's influence on the group's first two albums can be heard clearly with his freewheeling saxophone solos and his blues-based harmonica passages.fact|date=April 2008 Because he fulfilled the same role in Family that Chris Wood did in Traffic, comparisons between the two were inevitable.fact|date=April 2008 The American blues-rock band, the J. Geils Band from Boston, Massachusetts, also adopted a full-time sax/harmonica player by employing Richard "Magic Dick" Salwitz.

King's playing on record tended to be quite esoteric, as Family were in their psychedelic mode during his time in the band, and he began to experiment wildly with jazz influences.fact|date=April 2008

References

* [http://members.sol.com/songforme/ Strange Band: The Family Home Page]