I want to begin by drawing everyone's attention to the vast difference between the music Jim Shelley made before August 1992 and the music "Jim Shelley" made after August 1992. Just listen to "Don't Stop the Scream" which was released in April 1992 and "The Haunted Life" which was released barely six months later in October of the same year. "Don't Stop the Scream" is filled with precise mechanical beats, searing buzz saw guitars, and tortured distorted vocals, while the songs of "The Haunted Life" are filled with acoustic guitars, lazy loping drums, and nasally, almost Dylanesque singing. The themes covered in both albums couldn't be more different either. Could the same artist have made these two incredibly different albums, and only a half year apart from one another? While it's certainly possible, it seems doubtful to me.

But things get even dicier when we start to examine "The Haunted Life" (both the music and the album cover) and many startling clues begin to emerge. Consider the song titles. The very first is "Heaven"! A not so subtle clue as to Jim's "new address"? And the very next song is entitled "In My Room" which in 19th Century England was a euphemism for being "in one's casket," in other words, having passed on to the next life. Also consider that there are not just one but two song titles on the album with the word "Haunted" in them. "Haunted" as in by a ghost? Are perhaps Jim's double and Ain't Records mogul Jordan Williams haunted by Jim's memory? We know they're sad because the two songs after "In My Room" are "Blue Man" and "Haunted Road Blues"! In a round about way are we being told that Jordan and Jim's imposter are feeling grief for obvious reasons?

The very next song is titled (get this!) "Notes from Underground"! The only conclusion we can draw from this is that the imposter has released an album perhaps using as blueprints some of Jim's previously unreleased lyrics! In other words, we are getting words from the dead! Notes from the buried! But the most startling song title of all on this album is the one that starts off the second side of the original cassette version: "New James Shelley Blues"! Could the plot be more blatant? We are literally being told that there is a new Jim Shelley! And all of us have been too blind to see the truth!

There are some visual clues on the album as well. Aaron Farrington's cover artwork shows a green (corpse) faced being seemingly buried with a new orange faced being sprouting out of the ground and yet connected to the old face. And the new face is sticking its tongue out at us! Are we being mocked? Also, the picture of Jim used on the inside of the insert is at least 2-3 years old. Should we believe there were no newer photographs of Jim available, no current photos? Not if Jim had already passed away! And look at the photograph taken of Studio One at the Fabulous Attic Studios in Dayton ("A nice place to record.") The beloved old chair Jim had always sat in to record is EMPTY! And a Mexican funeral drum used during Day of the Dead ceremonies sits on it instead. And on the recording console is an open Bible! Equally startling are the words printed just above the picture: OVER! As in "out"! As in "done"! As in "finis"? As in "this bird has flown the coop and ain't coming back"! As in DEAD!

And just one more thing. In the little seen promotional flyer for "The Haunted Life" we find three photographs. The first, a baby photograph, has the word "Memories" above it. The second is a picture of an unknown man in a tuxedo sitting down to some sort of banquet (perhaps a feast of the dead or perhaps symbolic of the "eating" of Jim's musical legacy by Ain't Records?) and above this picture is the word "Facts." Maybe we are being told we need to accept the facts of this terrible tragedy. In the third and final photograph we see a picture of a man who looks not unlike Jim with his face completely blotted out! And beneath this photograph is the word "Lies"! Obviously we are being told that we have been and are being duped! And the text to the poster takes things even one step further. It reads: "An all new album! All new songs! An all new Jim Shelley! 'The Haunted Life'."

And here are some more things for you to consider: Why are there no photographs of Jim on his albums after "The Haunted Life"? When I get access to a scanner (as I am hoping to do very soon), I will show you photos of "Jim" from before 1992 and after. There is, to my eyes, a difference in appearances. Why did "Jim" grow a beard (that he has kept since 1992) during this time? Is he hiding an imperfect plastic surgery job? "Jim" has on several occasions, in both interviews and album notes, alluded to something very serious happening during the spring or summer of 1992. In a 1992 interview with Jordan Williams, Jim noted that he had been lately been extremely depressed. What was this bothersome "something" that had never been adequately specified? Very strangely, in my research into this matter I came across an insurance claim filed by "Jim" and his wife in the spring sometime after "Don't Stop the Scream" was finished for the loss of one of their cars--TOTALED BY FIRE apparently somewhere in Bridgewater, Virginia, the town where "Jim" moved to in 1996.