Jim Ringer

At one time, it appeared as though singer/songwriter Jim Ringer would be a major star; instead, he wound up as a cult figure with a small but devoted following. He was born in Yell County in the Arkansas Ozarks; during the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s, his family migrated to California's Central Valley. It was a rough life, and by 18, Ringer was serving a three-year prison sentence. For a few years afterward, he was a transient hopping freight trains from job to job until 1969, when he became a professional musician. Two years later, he was a hippie in Berkeley, where he and 1...