Jim Jamm Jimmy is a Texas Toast Guitars artist ambassador with about fourteen of their guitars and forty five years of gigging behind him. The story of how he met them starts with eight cases of beer and an email nobody answered.

It starts with polka

Jimmy is sixty, which I did not believe. He grew up in Joliet, Illinois, about forty five minutes south of Chicago, and started playing in a polka band at eleven. Banjo on the polkas, guitar on the waltzes and the slower stuff. By thirteen he was gigging weddings and getting paid for it.

His neighbor was Bob Dozak, who he describes as the polka king of south Chicago. Jimmy went to his gigs with the family, watched how a professional entertainer actually works, and decided early that he wanted the thing those people had. He was immersed in a live music scene before he was old enough to drive, whether his parents liked it or not.

I only learned what polka was because I went to Fort Hays State, where the town is German enough that Oktoberfest is homecoming. You adopt it fast when sausages and beer are involved.

Beer takes him to Colorado

He made bottles at a glass factory in Illinois until it closed in 1996. Coors came calling, hired him, and he ended up spending twenty seven years with them.

Once he got to Denver he picked up an upright bass, taught himself slap style, and had a twenty year run playing rockabilly. The Hillbilly Hellcats. Johnny and the Blades out of Taos. A band called 18 Wheeler that was big in Denver. Remember 18 Wheeler, it matters in a minute.

So polka got him started because of beer, and beer moved him to the city where the rest of it happened. His line on it: beer connects me to everything.

The eight cases

About five years ago Texas Toast videos started showing up in his feed out of nowhere. He thought they were hilarious, the guitars were great, and the thing that really got him was that they were always drinking Coors.

Like everybody else he assumed they were in Texas, because of the name. Then he went to their site one day and started recognizing faces. Guys he had played in bands with. Guys he had known for twenty years. He looked up the address. Four miles from his house in Westminster.

So he emailed Matt Flaherty. Loved the channel, loved that you drink Coors, would you like some free beer, I can get tons of it.

Nothing. Two weeks of nothing, because it is a two man shop and email is at the bottom of the list. So he emailed again. Do you want some free beer or not. That one got answered immediately.

He showed up with eight cases in the middle of a class, walked in and said, I’m the beer guy, brother. Matt spotted the big turquoise ring on his hand, said that’s a cool ring, and gave him the shirt off his back on the spot.

It was only later that somebody told Matt this was the bass player from 18 Wheeler. He and Jimmy and Chris had almost certainly been in the same bars in the nineties Denver scene more times than anyone could count, and had never once met. Same people, same rooms, same decade, no connection until beer.

How you become an ambassador

They were hanging out one day and Jimmy was admiring a purple pinstriped SG shaped guitar. Matt told him he would need to come correct to a gig to play that thing, then offered to sell it to him, and said the quiet part out loud: I know if you play that guitar I’m going to sell ten more, because you’re playing it.

That was the first one. He is up to thirteen or fourteen now, five or six of them Challengers. Two stand out. One is the JJJ Challenger Deluxe they built for him, which he plays constantly. The other one Matt handed him on his birthday as a raw cut out piece of wood with the words, happy birthday, now you have to finish it. He spent the next month in the shop building it, with their help, because you need their help on everything.

Why he rates them so highly

He calls them the best guitars on the planet and does not hedge. Part of that is the division of labor. Matt is the wood guy. Chris does paint, electronics and setup. Two people, two clear lanes, and it works.

But the part he wanted on the record was not about guitars. Those guys became genuinely close friends. They spend holidays together. His words were that beyond the instruments, they are really good human beings.

What is next for him

Life changed. He is retired from Coors and has moved to Wisconsin, near Milwaukee, with a new venture he intends to turn the local scene on its ear with.

He also passed along a date worth writing down. The next Great American Guitar Build Off is July 8th through the 11th, same venue as this year. He is bringing guitars.

Find them

• Texas Toast Guitars, Arvada, Colorado, Matt Flaherty and Chris Fesker
• More interviews on the channel

Follow along

One guy in a small shop on his father-in-law’s property in Lindsborg, Kansas. IT Director by day, maker by obsession. Equal parts problem solver, craftsman, and curious human. If you’re the kind of person who takes things apart to see how they work, or watches people who do, you’re in the right place.

Uncut shop sessions go up on YouTube and I stream on Twitch. Everything is @carverwoodworking. There is merch in the shop, or you can buy me a coffee.