Jim Danger Paradis

July 3, 1959 – August 16, 2024

It is with deep gratitude for the time spent together, joy of a life fully lived, and profound loss for the absence of this form of Jim Danger that his family announces news of his passing on Friday, August 16, 2024. Jim was a great father, a one-of-a-kind musician, a thoughtful writer with razor-sharp wit, and a true friend. He is survived by his wife of 18 years, Erin (Robertshaw) Paradis; son, James Paradis; three daughters: Lea Jacobson (and husband Ron), Crystal Paradis-Catanzaro (and wife Angie), and Sarah (and husband Bob); two grandchildren, Ariana Pitts (and wife Taylor), and Ryan Jacobson; one grandchild on the way, for whom he was extremely excited; and countless friends and fans of his music from across the globe.

An excerpt from “Who Is Jim Danger” (full article at JimDangerMusic.com): “Jim Danger, born James Paradis in Portsmouth on July 3, 1959, to parents who were both professional musicians, began as a drummer at age 7, learning primarily by playing along with the just-released “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” Beatles album. As a drummer, he was involved in a band by age 9, and played with scores of locals, doing everything from rock’n’roll to country-western to gospel, including a “very brief” stint in his high-school band, before dropping out of Kittery’s Traip Academy at age 15… There were perhaps 50 or 60 people who regularly packed themselves into the small practice space where the Jim Danger Band rehearsed, in 1984. “Oh,” says Danger of those days, “I was always really big in back alleys and gutters, quite famous among the garbage-can set.” That kind of under~underground notoriety stuck with Jim into the 90s, during which decade he appeared at open-stage events in the Dover area for several years, and then in ’99, released a multi-track cassette tape, “Packaged Raw”, featuring some two dozen meticulously recorded originals. “Dozens and dozens of copies of ‘Packaged Raw’ were released,” Jim recounts, smiling. “That was probably my biggest seller to date ~ and I only sold one, as I recall. The rest, I just gave away, ‘cause nobody’d pay me. I just wanted people to hear it.”

This sentiment stayed with him his whole life, with some of his most excited final moments coming from new people hearing his music as decades of his songs were uploaded onto online streaming services (search “Jim Danger” to hear for yourself). He didn’t care about money or fame; he just wanted more people to hear his music, because he believed it was good, and worth listening to, and the lyrics contained important ideas.

Jim came up with his future epitaph, “Never A Dull Moment,” in grade school, and boy did he live up to it. Tales of “near misses” abound, from several serious childhood injuries (one of which left him blind in one eye, like one of his heroes, Peter Falk), to wild days drumming for and driving GG Allin, to being dangled over Portsmouth-Kittery’s Memorial Bridge above the Piscataqua River in his punk rock days. When asked about his nickname (which he wanted to change his legal name to, another near-miss), “Jim Danger,” he clarified that it wasn’t because he was dangerous, it was because he was always in danger!

Jim penned hundreds of songs, some of which have been virtually unheard of, but despite lack of publicity, he never slacked in the songwriting department. He left behind, as he said, “seemingly endless reams of my writings attest to the fact that I haven’t been slacking there, either.” There are several future books’ worth of writings now being compiled.

On Friday, July 19th, he was shockingly diagnosed with Stage 4 incurable, inoperable, terminal metastatic gastric cancer. He returned home from the ER, picked up his guitar, and played a striking rendition of his blues song, written in 2013, “We’re All Dying.” His final four weeks were filled with the near-constant presence of his family and close friends. As he always did, he made a lasting impression on Wentworth Douglass Hospital’s excellent doctors, nurses, and hospital staff, to whom he distributed handwritten promo cards for his YouTube channel. One hospital worker said, “Oh, we’re all listening downstairs — we won’t forget Jim Danger around here for a long time.” Jim’s music, humor, writings, art, and stories will live on forever. Oh, one more thing: a lifelong Elvis fan, Jim passed away on the anniversary of Elvis’ death, a final twist of humor and a sign of what he referred to as the “Guiding Hand,” to which he attributed many of his life’s synchronicities.

Above all, he wanted to be remembered as a good father, which he was. As his son put it, on the tribute album that brought Jim his highest final moments of joy, Jim Danger was, “the greatest man who ever lived.”

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