Jim Neversink

Jim Neversink (born Michael James Whitehead; 16 June 1969) is a South African musician, singer and songwriter. His musical style spans indie rock, country, americana and punk.

He is best known as a solo artist who performs with changing line-ups. As such, he has released three albums to critical acclaim. Despite being released on independent labels, two of them were included in lists of best album of the year in South African magazines as well as in Billboard. Three South African newspapers also listed Neversink albums among their albums of the decade.

Before he went solo, Neversink was the co-founder and lead guitarist of Famous Curtain Trick, a country/pop/rock band which rose to mainstream popularity in South Africa in the 1990s and was nominated for a SAMA Award.

His most notable instrument is the guitar, including a home-built lap steel guitar.

Childhood and early youth Neversink was born in Durban on 16 June 1969. Growing up in Durban, he would listen to jazz, blues and country at home. He took up the guitar at the age of eighteen. Live performances included the music festivals Splashy Fen (1995, 1997, 1999), Wingerdstok (1997), Oppikoppi (1997), Southern Cross Folk & Rock Festival (2000) as well as opening for Roxette in Durban (1995) and touring South Africa with Bryan Adams (1999). In 2000, the band split up.

Other collaborations For a while, Neversink formed part of the alternative country/lo-fi rock band Lilo. He appears on bass on the band's first album Light me up a Lucifer (2002). Other members were, at the time, Alexander Sudheim, Graeme Barnes and Dean Henning.

He appears on lap steel on "Calling" off Syd Kitchen's album Africa's not for sissies (2001).

2000–2009 In 2001, Neversink moved to Johannesburg and began using the artistic name Jim Neversink.

Jim Neversink (Ent Entertainment 2005) Neversink's self-titled solo debut album was produced by Matthew Fink. Recorded partly under primitive circumstances in Neversink's bedroom, Beeld listed it among the "Top-Ten Albums" of the year, and, at the turn of the decade, included it in a list of South African albums of the decade. Channel24.co.za had it on their five-item list of "South African releases of the year", giving it five stars out of five. Their review, which likewise referred to the album as a "South African masterpiece", awarded it five stars out of five, remarking that "Neversink and Matthew Fink have produced a benchmark album, seemingly out of nowhere."

The CD has Jim Neversink on voice, guitar, lap steel, piano and harmonica, Matthew Fink on accordion and guitar and Katherine Hunt on bass, violin and backing vocals. Two tracks feature Paul "Roach" Cochrane on bass and Ashton Nyte on lead guitar.

Shakey is Good (Radio Lava, 2008) A second album, with Fink, Hunt and now Warrick Poultney on drums, and produced by Fink, likewise earned critics' acclaim: it came in as No. 2 on The Times' international "Top 20 albums" of 2008; Billboard'''s South African correspondent placed it as no 6 on her international list of "2008 Billboard Critics Top 10s"; Isolation.tv placed it as no 1 on their top-10 "South African albums of the year". The Times and Mail & Guardian included it in its listings of "albums of the decade". Channel24.co.za awarded it five out of five stars.

Live performances Live appearances with the Fink/Hunt/Poultney line-up included performing at the London Forum as support act for Sixto Rodriguez (2005) the White Mountain Folk Festival (2006) and the Splashy Fen (2007).

Neversink contributes backing vocal and slide guitar on the song "Stranger" by Laurie Levine (Unspoken: Beyond The Box Music, 2006) as well as backing vocal on her song "Scrambling" (Living Room: Beyond The Box Music, 2009).

He contributes slide-guitar on the song "Son" on Radio Kalahari Orkes's 2009 CD Heuningland.

2010–2019

Skinny Girls Are Trouble (One F, 2010) 2010 saw Neversink relocating to Copenhagen, Denmark and releasing his third album, Skinny Girls Are Trouble.

Shortly after the launch of Shakey is Good, he had begun to perform with Loandi Boersma (bass) and Kevin O'Grady (drums) and various guest performers. This is also the line-up of the third album which has guest performances from Rian Malan, Lani Pieters and Timon Wapenaar.

The album was produced in Johannesburg and New York by Richard Lloyd, former member of the new wave/punk rock band Television, and engineered, mixed and mastered by Peter Pearlson. An internet blog was set up to document the pre-production and recording processes. and also included in a list of "10 South African songs that rocked my world in 2010". and the 'bluegaze' group Me After You.

In 2014 he was a founding member of Frederiksberg Country Club, a local scene for live experimental music of all genres.

He performed at Frederiksberg Country Club in 2016, in an outfit with Leonard Seabrooke (bass) and Metthe Mathiesen (drums) and again in 2019, this time with Nils Lassen (guitar), Sara Saxild (bass) and Mette Mathiesen (drums).

Other collaborations and activities In 2013, Neversink wrote the score for Durban Poison, a crime/love story by South African film director Andrew Worsdale, that won 'Best South African Feature Film' at the 34th Durban International Film Festival in July 2013.

Neversink's score, noted as 'hypnotic' by one reviewer, was given a special jury award in the "Long Narratives competition" at the 3rd Luxor African Film Festival in 2014.

In 2015 he contributed a rendition of Afrikaans poet Ingrid Jonker's ‘Bitterbessie dagbreek’ to the compilation CD "Die kind is nog jonger".

2020–present No Wah-Wah (Present Records / The Good Times Co 2023) "No Wah-Wah" was an EP released in March 2024, featuring four songs by Neversink (Man's Best Friend, Wall out Songs, Dagga and Liefe) and a cover of Master Jack by David Marks. The albut was produced by Matthew Fink. The Daily Maverick Wrote: "With its underpinning drone, EP opener “Man’s Best Friend” comes by way of The Beatles’ The White Album and Velvet Underground's Venus in Furs. Unsettling in its telling of someone whose dogs “hate him so much they would rather eat him”, the cracked details of the lyric (“listening to a phone laying on its side/the voice is small and whining/packing all the things I need to hide/when I go out walking”) make for a setting that each listener will fill in for herself. The sketch and the plasticity of Neversink's lyrical screenplay is an unsettled piece that the listener completes on listening – and never less than uneasily. You fill in the details and wonder what they mean and what they say about Neversink. And, disconcertingly, about what that might say about you."

The album's artwork was by Danish designer and artist Thomas Winkler.

Lyrics Neversink's lyrics have been the subject of special acclaim; the Mail & Guardian, upon the release of Shakey is Good, pronounced him "one of the finest songwriters in South Africa". The Star justified a no-1 placement on a best-albums list by referring to "the raw emotion, the intelligent songwriting which he has crafted beautifully"; the angle is often darkly romantic, occasionally humorous and defiant. others place him in the vicinity of Chris Isaak, the Jayhawks, Wilco and Calexico The song "Always Dreaming of You" (off Jim Neversink'') contains a reference to Slim Whitman and quotes his hit "Rose Marie". The word "Shakey" in the title of his second album is, partly, a reference to Neil Young's pseudonym, Bernard Shakey.

Jim Neversink playing live with Matthew Fink on accordion, Warrick Poultney on drums and Katherine Hunt on violin. Cellardoor Live, Johannesburg 2007.