Jim Adkins
Jim Adkins is an award winning songwriter/guitarist from the central Virginia area. He has won awards for his songwriting abilities in Smooth Jazz, Instrumental Composition and Inspirational/Gospel music over the years. His most notable was the 1999 BILLBOARD SONG CONTEST awards for the 2nd place in the Jazz category for the song "Wind Dancing" and was featured on the Billboard Annual Song Contest cd volume II. Wind Dancing was also selected out of more than 50,000 songs to be included on MP3s 103 of the Best Songs You've Never Heard Volume I which was distributed to over 250,000 music fans. He has also won eight awards in V.O.C.A.L. (Virginia Organization of Composers and Lyricist). His cd "The Journey" spent multiple weeks on the top 50 Smooth Jazz charts in the nation and received great reviews. It was also Grammy nominated for best jazz album!! The latest cd “Soul Expression” spent over a year on the the Smooth Jazz Charts peaking at #17 on the top 100. #1 on the Smooth Jazz Radar Chart and #41 on the Smoothjazz.com chart for 100 best albums of 2023! It also reached # 1 on the Guitarone charts!
To date Jim has seven recordings to his credit. His continues to sell across the U.S. and in other countries to include Spain, Switzerland, Great Britian, Netherlands, France, Italy, Japan, Poland, Hungary, Austrailia, New Zealand, Korea, Indonesia, Portugal, Canada, Brazil, Belgium, Turkey, Denmark, Singapore ,Germany, Russia, China and more.
In 1998 he released his first recording called "Just Chillin". It was a product of his award winning songs and some other new compositions. In 2000, Jim released his 2nd cd called "Straight Ahead" Featuring nine new compositions. The song "Watching You Smile" received an Honorable Mention in the Billboard Song Contest Making the top 500 out of ten thousand entries.
In the year 2001, Jim signed with Positive Music Records and recorded a new cd called "Turning Point". The cd was produced by smooth jazz staple Ken Navarro. It contained songs from his first two cd's and four new compositions. "Turning Point" offers a fresh contemporary sound using some of the top musicians in the genre and features Jim's diverse guitar playing. The cd was released in February of 2002 and yielded a top 40 hit on the Smooth Jazz charts with the song "Into The Storm".
The year 2004 marked the release of "License To Play". It was the first release on Clear Image Records. Clear Image was founded by Jim Adkins and will have all his cds in the Clear Image Catalog. The cd received lots of air around the country and received good reviews.
In June of 2008 Jim released " City Streets". The cd spent over 40 weeks on the smooth jazz indie charts ! Sales so far have been reported throughout the US, and in other countries. "City Streets" has also received great reveiws and articles from smoothjazz.com, smoothjazztherapy.com, jazzreview.com and has been featured in articles in Spain and Belgium.
March 15th 2015 marks the release of his sixth recording "The Journey". Some critics say it's the best effort so far by showing more diversity. It charted on the Indie charts the second week after release and since then moved in to the Smooth Jazz top 50 national charts. Over 60 radio outlets in the US, UK, and Australia have been playing the record and the reviews have been very favorable. In August the cd was Grammy nominated for best Jazz album!!!
On July 8th 2022 Jim is releasing his 7th cd titled "Soul Expression" . Featuring 10 new recordings, including a cover of "Thinking Out Loud" by Ed Sheeran and nine new soulful, melodic and well crafted originals songs. The cd went to # 17 on the Smoothjazzglobal.com charts, # 1 On the Radio Radar chart and # 41 for the Top 100 albums on the SmoothJazz.com charts for 2023. It also made # 1 on the RadioGuitarone Chart!