Meet James Cockerham | African American Music Composer

The most important lesson my music career has taught me is to focus on music, not the fame and fortune it might bring. Don’t chase money. “If you can’t afford it, wait until you can.” Develop a budget, know who is and also how you will reach and grow your audience. It is okay to use your non-music related job to help fund your music business.

Focusing on fame and fortune will many times leave you disappointed. I remember renting an eight hundred fifty seat theatre for one of my musical stage productions and only three hundred people came. In my mind, it did not matter that the three hundred who attended the show enjoyed it and that there was a spontaneous standing ovation. All that mattered was that I was in debt and did not become rich after my first large scale stage production. I felt like a failure for years, because “so many” seats were empty. Much of my creative time was stolen as a result of my chasing money.

Teaching a Music Appreciation class help me realize I am a music composer. I also play piano at two different churches. I have played clubs, toured with rock bands as well as solo performances.

My style of writing is different from many composers. I am not confined to one genre. I am a “music composer.” My multi-genre compositions include gospel, R&B, jazz, blues, country, orchestral, reggae, oratorios and other music styles. The majority of my songs speak to views of life from a personal, as well as collective experience.

I am most excited about having my work performed at Carnegie Hall.

Hard work has made me who I am today as a professional musician. Getting to where I am today was not easy. When you do not have the financial backing you need to get certain jobs completed, you must learn to do things yourself. Eight, ten and sometimes sixteen hour workdays are not unusual.

I have been writing songs since 1967 when I pledged Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. I have learned to set goals. “If you don’t set goals and know where you are going, you will never know when you get there.”

I want the world to know, please do not expect the works of James V. Cockerham to fit into one category. You may hear a solo dramatic voice in a stage production, three piano jazz chords in the change of scenes in a movie, an HBCU marching band playing at a football game, an orchestral work telling the story of Africans on a ship being brought to America to become enslaved, or an “in love country singer” saying, “Never ever ever gonna ever say never again.”

I have a wide variety of friends. Most of whom are my age. At seventy-four years old, fun, interesting and exciting have taken on a different character. (LOL)

The Senior weeks activities would consist of laughing and talking about wild and crazy things we use to do.

Thumbs Up or breakfast at home; Atlantic station or Rays on the River restaurants for lunch and maybe Oceanaire, Chops or Bones for dinner. Some may like to visit the Aquarium, World of Coke, African American Museum, King Center, Fernbank Museum or the Botanical Gardens. During evening hours we would go to see the Braves, Hawks or Falcons play. We would take Uber for nighttime entertainment at the Fox, Cobb Energy Center, or The City Winery. When younger friends visit, I call young Atlanta friends their age to show them where they will need to go for whatever they came to Atlanta to see. (LOL) Fifty years ago when I first moved to Atlanta, I played gigs where our band started at midnight and played til 4:00 AM. I am sure those clubs are still around. I just don’t know where they are. (LOL)

Arietha Lockhart is the first person that comes to mind. She sang, “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence” on my CD BASIC/cockerham: Nobody Like Jesus; “Stand” on my “Be Still and Know” CD and she also appeared as the Angel in my musical stage production “A Lifestyle, Not A Religion: Songs from the Book of James” where she sang my orchestral arrangement of “Soon I Will Be Done.” Arietha has toured the world as a Coloratura Soprano with the Atlanta Symphony Chorus. She has always encouraged me to not change my style of writing. She said, “Your polyphonic approach to playing music intrigues me. When you play, you have several melodies going on at one time, but none seem to overshadow the other.” Receiving a Masters Certificate in Orchestration for Film and TV from Berklee College of Music, helped me understand what she was saying. When I play a song, countermelodies are natural for me.

The Gateways Music Festival Orchestra, conducted by Michael Morgan, at Kodak Hall, Eastman School of Music, on Sunday, August 11, 2019 was first to play my arrangement of “Fantasia on Lift Every Voice and Sing.” I am forever indebted to the 125 classically trained musicians of African descent, from major orchestras around the world, who came together on that day and performed my work. Many if them whom I now call friends, will be playing my work again on April 24, 2022, 3:00 PM at New York City Carnegie Hall. This is the same concert where Jon Batiste of The Late Night Show with Stephen Colbert will premier his new work and Anthony Parnther will be the guest conductor. Over half of these tickets have been sold. According to Harlem World News, this will be the “First All-Black Classical Symphony Orchestra At Carnegie Hall In Its 130-Year History.”