Music
Jim McCarty
born 1945
· guitarist
Detroit blues-rock guitarist of Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, Cactus and the Rockets, whom Ted Nugent calls his biggest early influence.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan
age 81- Birth name
- James William McCarty
- Also known as
- Jimmy McCarty
- Detroit years
- 1945–present
- Field
- Music
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
McCarty grew up in Detroit and was already turning heads as a teenager; Ted Nugent has said that seeing him play big chords on a hollow-body guitar around 1960 shaped his own style. As lead guitarist of Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels he played on the mid-1960s hits “Jenny Take a Ride!” and “Devil with a Blue Dress On.” He then joined the Buddy Miles Express and in 1970 co-founded the heavy blues-rock band Cactus. Back home he formed the Rockets with drummer Johnny “Bee” Badanjek, a Detroit favorite of the late 1970s whose cover of “Oh Well” was a radio hit. He also jammed with Jimi Hendrix and recorded with Bob Seger. For decades he has played Detroit blues rooms with the Detroit Blues Band, Mystery Train and the Kenny Parker Band, and he returned with Cactus for a sold-out homecoming show in 2007.
Highlights
- Lead guitar on “Devil with a Blue Dress On” (1966)
- Co-founded Cactus (1970)
- Co-founded the Rockets, known for “Oh Well” (1979)
- Appears on Jimi Hendrix's posthumous Nine to the Universe (1980)
- Inducted into the Canada South Blues Society's Living Blues Museum in Windsor (2010)