Why do most resumes tell you little about the potential of the person? Do we just keep repeating formats that were not effective in the first place?

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"Standard, typical, one to two page resumes discriminate more against older people than any other form of discrimination."

When I was a chief of staff running operations with hundreds or even thousands of employees, it always frustrated me when we needed new employees and every resume looked the same.  Even if I wanted to hire someone directly out of college, I still had no way to differentiate between the applicants because the resumes looked identical.

There is always a point in the hiring process when you have to personally interview the applicant before making a decision, but I always felt the preliminary screening process knocked many good applicants out before I ever saw them.

Over the years there have been many fads to change, improve, or otherwise alter resumes but the institutional bureaucracy always seems to drift back to the same boring formats that never really worked in the first place, at least from the employer perspective.

Therefore, I decided to try an experiment.  What would happen if I threw out the formats and created a document of my life story that actually told you what I did, to some degree beyond a line on paper, as well as what characteristics, talents, virtues, and creative solutions did I use to do what I did.

Since I have been around a while and did many things, it gave me an opportunity to say all the things missing from a standard resume.  The result follows and is quite different from you might be used to seeing.

So I am asking you, the reader, what you think of a conversational resume I created that replaced the two page resume of my life that did not allow me to summarize anything.  This mini-documentary of a life does not fit into a standard length and layout, as it must reflect what you actually did.

My question to you is does it give you a better idea of the person you are reading about than a traditional resume, and if so, why are we not encouraging college students and others to be more creative in presenting their vitae.

20276 Park Place, PO Box 21 - Coltons Point, MD 20626

Phone 301-769-2027 - email: ivyonoak@yahoo.com

Ivy Hollow Productions

"An unusual collection of like-minded souls with considerable interest in the most ordinary and peculiar of things."

Jim Putnam, Proprietor

Overview & Background

·         Did you ever wonder what it would be like to be friends with Yogi Berra?

·         How about having lunch with La Casa Nostra Godfather Joseph Bonanno?

·         Or sit on a remote New Jersey deck and chat with Brooke Shields?

·         Perhaps tour a museum with Werner Von Braun, architect of our space program?

·         Or maybe enjoy dinner backstage with singer Celine Dion?

·         What about helping Bobby Kennedy's son Joseph II with his foundation?

·         Spend a day with the original Rasta Man Bob Marley?

·         Chat in a locker room with Smokin' Joe Frasier, world heavyweight boxing champion?

·         Be a sponsor of Richard Petty, top NASCAR driver in history?

·         Discover Hitler's secret SS film archives in the frontier outside Moscow?

What do these things all have in common?  Jim Putnam did them.

The Early Years

Some people just don't belong here.  Take Jim Putnam, an Iowa Hayseed for example.  His philosophy on life was established early, very early, and people often found it unsettling.

His self-described mission was "to disturb all settled ideas."  His approach to life was; "no definitions, no regulations, no laws and no prejudice".  True to his love for Lewis Carroll and his magnificent Alice in Wonderland, in Putnam's world "nothing was as it seemed".

Putnam lived to experience life, every aspect of life from the life force in all objects to the thrill of victory and annoyance of defeat.  Every day offered new capers and every experience a new chapter in his own "Commonplace" book on life.  In his mind being open to anything and everything was a gateway to more adventures and he instinctively knew the more he learned the less he realized he knew.

Yet what chance did he ever have to be normal?  He was delivered by a female physician (a rare occurrence) one year after 2 Atomic bombs ended World War II.  Then at 6 months old he had to be saved by a fireman from a burning apartment?  At 1½ years he suffered a concussion and broke his face flying down a concrete stairway in a stroller.  At 3  he was on IVs in a hospital with the mumps.

At 4 he was immersed in ice to break a 106° temperature.  At 5 he was up to his chest sinking in quicksand in Texas.  At 6 he and brother Bob were caught in a shootout when they threw a box of bullets into an incinerator.  At 7 he all but drowned in a pond at summer camp going under three times.

By 8 he was hit by lightning in a lake.  At 9 he was electrocuted in his basement when pretending to be a priest and holding Mass and Communion.  At 10 he was trapped overnight in a blizzard in a cave in below zero temperatures.  At 11 he fell through the ice on a lake in frigid weather and his clothes froze while trying to get home in the woods.

At 12 he was in a speedboat collision that split a 2nd boat in two in a ferocious Lake Michigan gale.  At 13 he had a brain concussion, had total amnesia and went into a deep coma for days.  All of this and he had not even started high school yet.

The mystical and magical Hopi Indians describe Jim Putnam as a "One Heart" who "walks between worlds".  In his world Putnam always said some people pray for miracles, he relied on them.  When taking aptitude tests Putnam used to drive the nuns crazy insisting that he could not be pigeonholed into a career path when he wanted to learn and experience everything.  And in religion class his persistent questioning of dogma and theology kept him in constant trouble.

Born and raised in Iowa City, Iowa then moving to Ottumwa when he was 8, one might say he was a multi-tasking over-achiever from his earliest years.  In kindergarten he was already winning book reading contests at the Iowa City Library.  He chose Greek Philosophers like Plato, Socrates and Aristotle over the Hardy Boys mysteries and Popular Science and Popular Mechanics over teen magazines.

By 1st grade he was leaving weekly instruction notes to his mother informing her of school and church activities of the kids and reminding her about her duties that week for PTA, lunches, church receptions and lunch needs for the gang.  He prepared his own meals by 3rd grade and did his own laundry and ironed his own clothes by 5th grade. Before finishing 5th grade he had read every textbook he would have through 8th grade.

Just before 3rd grade his family moved from the youthful and vibrant Iowa City college town to Ottumwa, a struggling manufacturing town still trying to recover from coal mining origins.  His first memory of the town was waking up in a funeral home where his dad stayed while looking for a house.

Putnam's first memory of his new school, St. Mary's, was when the class had to have eye exams and he could not see a single line on the eye chart.  The nurse became furious with him saying he was lying and the new kid in school was reduced to tears in front of his new classmates.

The sad truth was he was almost blind and no one had noticed and the nurse refused to believe it was possible so Jim Putnam showed up in his new town and new school wearing coke bottle glasses the lens were so thick.  From a cute little kid in a college town to a freak in a foreign wilderness, the funeral home and eye glass disasters were an indication there was something foreboding about this place.

In fact, so upside down was life in his new home that once his mother, in response to criticism of her son by his teacher, wrote she "also found Jim strange and he often seemed to live in another world."  Indeed he did and it was his other world full of non-stop activity and endless adventures that kept him sane until he could make his great escape after high school.

An exceptional Knight of the Alter (Alter Boy) he memorized every Mass in Latin.  In sports he was a YMCA swim team member and basketball all star, also on the Country Club swim team, won state championships in Little League and Babe Ruth baseball and was named Most Valuable player in one state championship.  When the Catholic high school for girls burned down just before Jim started high school, his was the 1st co-ed class to finish 4 years.

At high school he earned 14 varsity letters in five sports excelling in baseball and golf, helped shatter records in basketball including a sweet 16 berth in the state basketball tournament though being from the smallest school in the tourney, and being ranked #1 in the state in their class.  In fact during his 4 years in high school the varsity record was 84-11 and his team never lost a home game.

By the time he completed high school he had participated on numerous debate and speech clubs, was elected to several school offices, and played in the high school band.  A writer for the Unitas school newspaper and co-editor of the yearbook, Putnam also had several articles published in the Des Moines Register newspaper and won the Outstanding Journalism award.

The Siren Call of Music & Muses

In high school Putnam had a promising rock and roll band but gave it up to play basketball and baseball for the University of Arizona Wildcats.  Perhaps it is not surprising music was interwoven into his activities throughout his life since he is a 3rd generation musician from Iowa City.

His grandfather, Wayne S. Putnam, had founded The Wayne Putnam Swing Orchestra, a featured band on the Moose Club circuit back in the 1930’s and ‘40’s.  His father, Wayne E. and Uncle Chuck both played in the orchestra and his grandmother taught piano in Iowa City.

Music was not limited to his father’s side of the family as his other Grandfather, Patrick Campbell, also of Iowa City, used to drag his young grandson with him in summers to his motel on the outskirts of Springfield, Missouri, the home of country music in the 1940’s and early ‘50’s.

There young Jim spent many long nights listening to the country stars jamming in the motel coffee shop after gigs on the Smilin’ Jack Tyree Radio Show, or Korn’s A-Krackin barn dance which later became the Ozark Jubilee in Springfield.  Who showed up at the coffee shop in the wee hours of the night?  It might be Porter Wagoner, Speedy Haworth, Chet Atkins, Eddy Arnold, and the list goes on and on.

It was the beginning of a lifelong interest in country music and the relationship between Celtic and country music tying together his ancestral roots from Scotland and Ireland.  He also could be found watching the University of Iowa Scottish Highlander bagpipe band at practices.

Even when he went to Arizona to play basketball and baseball he often attended local performances of his freshman classmate, an aspiring young singer named Linda Ronstadt.  And members of his Beta Theta Pi fraternity were featured performers on the nationally broadcast Hootenanny Show.  Among the many entertainers who performed at their fraternity house was the national hit group the Kingsmen, of Louie, Louie fame.

He loved concerts in the dawning of the rock and roll age and got to meet a host of stars like Elvis, Sony & Cher, the Mamas & Papas, Moody Blues and later got to work with many more like the Turtles, Blood Sweat & Tears, Frankie Avalon, and Frankie Valle and the Four Seasons on benefit projects.

Right after he graduated from high school he travelled to New Haven, Connecticut to meet with coaches at Yale University to decide if he would attend that fall.  After spending two years completing the process to get into Yale he opted for Arizona.  Ironically, had he gone to Yale his classmates would have been Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and George Bush, Jr., all Yale grads from the same class as Jim.

During the same trip he spent a couple of weeks in NYC and DC.  While in NYC he met Tiny Tim in The Page Three club in Greenwich Village, unbeknownst to Jim the most notorious lesbian bar in NYC.  He also was at the Blue Note and The Gaslight Cafe, hangout of Bob Dylan.

From the dugout of Yankees Stadium

So he made the best of NYC on his trip going to several Yankees games in the Bronx where he was in the dugout meeting players like Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Yogi Berra and Whitey Ford.  There were also Mets games in their new Shea Stadium, the World's Fair in Queens, Coney Island in Brooklyn and he attended nearly a dozen Broadway plays in Manhattan.

At one point he went to the world famous Brill Building located at 1619 Broadway just north of Time's Square and uptown from NYC's famous Tin Pan Alley neighborhood where he met loosely affiliated groups of songwriter-producer teams working there including Carole King, Burt Bacharach, Neil Sedaka, Neil Diamond and Boyce and Hart, writers who dominated the rock and roll charts whose songs were recorded by Bobby Darin, Aretha Franklin, The Supremes, Ray Charles, Dusty Springfield, Paul Simon and Elvis Presley, also in the Brill studios.

Later in his career Putnam returned to the Brill Building to use the Broadway Video studios 0f Loren Michael, creator of Saturday Night Live, to produce an award winning television special.  And he often partnered with Chuck Hammer, legendary lead guitarist with Lou Reed and David Bowie, including projects for artists like Carol King.  Eventually Putnam would help found a company housed at 52nd & 5th Avenue overlooking St. Patrick's Cathedral and NBC Rockefeller Center just blocks from the Brill Building.

June 1964 Putnam visited the construction site of the Twin Towers, soon to be the tallest buildings in the world, at a new complex to be called the World Trade Center.  It would open in 1970.  In the 1980's when Putnam worked for the Governor of New Jersey on occasion he attended board meetings for the Governor at the Port Authority in the Twin Towers, the government agency that owned the World Trade Center complex.

February 26, 1993 while working in Manhattan he was on his way to a meeting in the North Tower of the World Trade Center the day a terrorist bomb exploded killing 6 and injuring over 1,000.  September 11, 2001 Putnam, still working in Manhattan, was having coffee on the front porch of his home in Jersey across the Bay from lower Manhattan when he saw the 2nd airplane crash into the Twin Towers and the subsequent collapse of the buildings in the worst terrorist attack in our history.  In time Putnam would live and work in New Jersey and Manhattan longer than he lived in Iowa in his youth.

Back to music, there was another occasion when he spent an entire day with Bob Marley on a plane trying to get through snow storms into Minneapolis, Minnesota and finally giving Marley his winter coat because the soft spoken Jamaican didn't own one.

Music was integrated into almost everything Putnam did from concerts in political campaigns, to rock groups in public affairs programs, to Nashville recording sessions.  He often used friends from Mannheim Steamroller in Omaha to perform at political events and play at studio sessions.

Once Putnam was managing a very close Congressional campaign and needed minority votes to win.  So he contacted the legendary BB King's manager to get BB to give a boost to the campaign efforts.  Jim and the candidate greeted BB at his plane at the airport and escorted him to the waiting press inside the terminal.  BB was wearing the candidate's tee shirt and mentioned his "old friend" to the waiting press.  The stunned media, suspecting the candidate knew nothing about BB King, asked him his favorite King song and he replied, "Gotta Pay the Cost to be Boss."

In return, BB requested a box of the best Omaha steaks for him and his band after the concert and a small grill to cook them on.  Shortly after Putnam left BB and company in the room fire alarms woke the hotel guests when a wind change blew the smoke from the grill on a balcony just outside the room, back into the hotel.

The Political Years

After attending the University of Arizona on a sports scholarship and majoring in journalism he attended Parsons College, now Maharishi University of Management founded by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a Vedic sage who was mentor to the Beatles at the height of their career.  Jim also went to the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and by age 22 he began his career in politics working for the first of three mayors of Omaha, Nebraska, a Republican, followed by a Democrat, then another Republican who became a Democrat.

During the next four years Putnam would undertake a series of pilot projects that would change the way local government functioned well into the future.  He was the 2nd employee hired to create the first Regional Council of Governments in the Midwest to identify and implement government consolidations, mergers, shared services and planning in order to improve service and lower costs.  The success was immediate as Albuquerque, Indianapolis, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Toronto launched additional pilot programs.  Jim was on several task forces for the National League of Cities and US Conference of Mayors.

Putnam was honored by the US Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics for being first statistician to create a methodology to identify pockets of high unemployment and poverty areas within metropolitan areas, data that became the foundation for economic and manpower training programs throughout the nation.

Working with the Office of Management & Budget (OMB) in the Executive Office of the President he created the nation's first Comprehensive Manpower Program consolidating 18 jobs, employment and training programs in five federal departments into a single entity lowering administrative costs up to 80% and reallocating nearly 50% into improved services.  It was then implemented nationwide saving tens of millions of dollars a year.

Then he helped consolidate financial and management reporting systems so local government could use one report for all federal agencies.  The Omaha Riverfront Development Program he helped create with the Mayor was a national pilot development program.  He was assigned temporarily to assist the director of the federal Office of Economic Opportunity to save federal funding for the popular Headstart and Legal Services programs for low income.

He published award winning studies such as a massive work titled The Invisible Americans identifying poverty in America, did analysis to identify America's unemployed, and was part of the Census Bureau Address Coding Task Force to see that all government data was available on a block by block basis.

He served on task forces to evaluate the Federal Bureau of Prisons, reform the welfare system, create federal block grants to cities and states, design and implement the historic General Revenue Sharing program for states and cities, and helped draft new education, energy, environmental, housing and Justice Department law enforcement assistance programs to assist local governments.

After four years he was in our nation's capitol as a domestic affairs specialist for the Executive Office of President Richard Nixon, reporting to Roy Ash, OMB Director and founder of Litton Industries, and Frank Zarb, Associate Director of OMB and later Chairman of the NASDAQ stock exchange.

Putnam was one of 32 specialists of the little known White House New Federalism Task Force that restructured the entire federal domestic government from agencies to programs to policy.  The New York Times called the mysterious Presidential task force the most powerful federal domestic initiative by a president since the New Deal under President Franklin Roosevelt.

Silently it went about the work of decentralizing the federal government and transferring powers to our nation's governors during the darkest hours of the American presidency, the year between the Watergate and Impeachment hearings.

Over the next decade he was a reporter for the Omaha World Herald, spent four terms working for the US Congress, managed two successful congressional campaigns, and helped elect the first Jewish US Senator from Nebraska.

Presidential campaign experience included work for Bobby Kennedy and Presidents Ford, Reagan and Bush, Sr. followed by work with Ross Perot on presidential and NAFTA efforts. His political experience included all aspects of the legislative and executive branches of local, state and federal governments and involved working for Democrats, Republicans and Independents.

Nationally he served as Deputy Arrangements Chairman for the 1972 Republican National Convention, the year of the largest presidential election victory in history (Nixon won 49 of 50 states), served as campaign manager for US House and Senate races and culminated his political career by hosting separate events with all four living GOP presidents (Nixon, Ford, Reagan & Bush, Sr.) the same year.

While in politics Putnam also worked with Governor Charles Thone of Nebraska and spent 8 years with Governor Thomas Kean in New Jersey (recently Chairman of the 9/11 Terrorism Commission), serving the latter as a chief of staff, media and communications director and assistant state treasurer of New Jersey.

In 1981 Kean, a moderate Republican won the governor's race by the closest margin in New Jersey history, just 1,797 votes of 2.4 million cast.  By 1985 Kean won by the largest victory margin in history, getting 69.5% of the vote in a Democrat state and winning by 794,229 votes.  Putnam was active in the 1985 campaign, the most successful "voter inclusion program" ever undertaken by a GOP candidate in the nation.  Kean's record margin included over 60% of the Black, Union and Roman Catholic votes.

Jim worked with former Kean chief of staff and campaign manager Greg Stevens and cabinet member Leonard Coleman, who became President of the National League in Major League Baseball, on the 1985 campaign.  He helped coordinate with Coretta Scott King, widow of Martin Luther King, Jr., who endorsed Kean, and Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa.  In January 1986, a song Putnam wrote at the request of Coretta Scott King called I Had A Dream was performed at the first national holiday celebrations honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. in Atlanta and San Francisco.

Working for Governor Kean he successfully led the state effort to sue oil companies and won over $600 million for the state.  He was a member of the State Planning Commission, the Farmland Preservation Commission, the State Energy Planning Commission and State Recycling program, all nationally recognized initiatives of excellence in government.  He also oversaw the New Jersey Motion Picture & Television Commission headed by actress Celeste Holm.

The Kean years also found Jim becoming acquaintances with New York Giants legendary coach Bill Parcells and assistant coach Bill Belichick (now coach of the New England Patriots) through the New Jersey Sports Authority, owner of Giants Stadium, when Putnam represented the Governor or Commissioner Coleman at meetings.  The Giants won two Super Bowls during those years.  Jim also became friends with New York Yankees All Stars Yogi Berra and Phil Rizzuto during various political activities.

Passions and Pursuits - More Music, Writing & Entertainment

While working for the Governor he created and produced a television special for the A&E TV Network on energy conservation which won the Cable TV ACE award, the Award for Cable Excellence, the national cable network Emmy, as best public service program in America.  The program featured Patti Lapone, Tony winning star of Evita, and the band he created called State Property.  It was the first government funded show to ever appear on A&E network and first to win the coveted ACE.

During this time he was a creator, partner and collaborator with multiple Emmy winner Andrew Carl Wilk, now Executive Producer at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in NYC on projects including the Energy Show for A&E Network, Flashpoint, a PBS weekly public affairs program, and the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra of NYC whose annual Salute to Broadway at the Paper Mill Playhouse, the largest regional theatre in the nation, featured Tony winning actors performing the best songs on Broadway.

Putnam wrote several scripts for Jim Henson's Muppet Babies TV program directed by Wilk and worked with Andrew (conductor and director) in community and regional playhouse productions of Annie, Jesus Christ Superstar, Company and Pirates of Penzance. A number of rising stars on Broadway were launched from the popular plays.

From politics he moved to Madison Avenue where he reunited with former Reagan and Bush presidential campaign experts including Roger Ailes, media consultant now President of Fox News, pollsters Richard Wirthlin and Neil Newhouse, and media creator Phil Dusenberry, Chairman of BBDO America advertising agency and creator of the Michael Jackson, Ray Charles and Cindy Crawford Pepsi ad campaigns among many others.  Phil's Crawford ad is one of the top ten Super Bowl ads of all time.

The first person hired at Media, Inc. in NYC Jim helped grow it to $300 million in billings in 3 years.  He worked with a number of rock stars on benefits like the annual Starlight Foundation gala, stars including Howard Kaylan, lead singer for the Turtles and Mothers of Invention and David Clayton Thomas and the Gellis brothers of Blood Sweat & Tears.  He once had dinner backstage with Celine Dion and Michael Boulton after a New Jersey amphitheater performance.

While working in New York in 1994 he formed his own media company, Ivy Hollow Productions, where he produced the first digital recording of the New Testament of the Bible by renowned Shakespearian dramatic actor Max McLean.  Working with Bob Monroe and his Monroe Foundation Jim used "hemispherical synchronization" to increase reader retention when listening to the recording.

After publishing two books of poetry, he then wrote and published The Joshua Chronicles, an inspirational and mystical work of fiction.  At the same time he began writing the words and music for a catalog that now totals over 500 songs and he formed two bands to record the music, Nashville Bound and the John Galt Band.  Over 15,000 Internet friends and fans have helped the bands achieve over a million Internet plays.

National Geographic Television, Ancient Cultures & Sacred Sites

His lifelong fascination with ancient cultures led him to sacred sites around the world including many in Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales, Mexico, Russia and Canada and was a stimulus to become involved with Andrew Wilk again at the National Geographic Society television division as a creative consultant and in providing soundtracks and themes for a number of Nat Geo TV shows with the Pinnacle Group in Utah.  While at National Geographic Television a series he helped create and post produce with Chuck Hammer, Really Wild Animals (CBS TV Network & Disney Network), earned one Emmy and five Emmy nominations.

Ivy Hollow undertook major national media campaigns for publishers and record companies in Nashville and Washington, D.C.  Putnam also created and produced a nationally syndicated weekly radio program in Nashville, Family Values, introducing new Christian singers and authors and launching numerous singers to the top of the national charts including Point of Grace, Anointed, Jackie Velasquez, Rich Mullins and many others.

Dancing the Tightrope and Take Me Now God! are two books he wrote inspired by the experiences of his life and the many influences growing up. The first book traces the early childhood through teen years and the many adventures all kids shared while coming of age in the days before cell phones, texting, video games and personal computers. The latter is the end of the pursuit of the meaning of life, a rather hilarious journey through the baby boomer maze of metaphysical and spiritual paths to the truth.

His next literary work led him on trips throughout Great Britain and Ireland which preceded travel to Russia in search of secret Soviet film archives of Josef Stalin. In the frontier outside Moscow on a military base near Stalin's home he discovered the extensive KGB cold war film archives of Stalin and the Nazi SS film archives of Adolph Hitler which had vanished 50 years earlier in the fall of Berlin.  Over 32 million feet of film footage was kept in the top secret archives. Putnam was the first American the 49 archive staff had ever met and only the 2nd to visit the archive in the 60+ years since it opened.

After 7 years of research including access to previously "classified" files in America, England, France and Russia, he wrote his subsequent book, Saviors of the 20th Century, Hitler & Stalin - the War of Annihilation between the Nazis and Communists.  It is a non-fiction narrative history tracing the roots and growth of Communism, Nazism, Hitler and Stalin.

While in Russia he was able to acquire and bring to the western world a stunning documentary that exposed horrid living conditions and death rates in Russian orphanages.  It led to major changes in the health and safety of abandoned children in Russia.

He also worked with international groups to help adopt Russian and Chinese children.  As a result he made several appearances as a guest and host of Russia Today, a syndicated public education television program out of Washington, DC.  In addition, Nazi footage acquired by Putnam through the Russian archives has appeared in Turner Broadcasting Productions.

In 2000 he joined The Interpublic Group of Companies (IPG) in NYC, one of the world's largest media companies, after they bought Media, Inc., the media company which Putnam helped create in NYC in the mid-1990's.

Energy & the Environment

Always intrigued by science, physics and inventions, he studied math and physics and received a license from the Atomic Energy Commission to handle radioactive materials 15 years before being involved in the clean up of the Three Mile Island nuclear accident while working for the New Jersey governor.

He received awards from President Johnson for work with Keep America Beautiful and the National Association of Business, and was involved in several environmental pilot projects including industrial cogeneration, massive incinerators, fusion energy (Princeton, NJ), and he oversaw implementation of the nation's first statewide mandatory recycling program in New Jersey.

A member of the task force to create the Federal Energy Agency in response to Arab oil embargoes, he advocated alternative energy before it was popular, even patented and manufactured a solar energy system in the mid 1970's.  The latter was implemented through a consortium he recruited of blue chip corporations including PPG Industries, Phillips Petroleum, Goodyear Tire and Rubber and Dow Chemical.

His fascination with science and nature prepared him for a most unusual exposure to natural disasters and the forces of nature as Jim had his homes hit by tornadoes in three different states,  has been in hurricanes in Texas, Florida and Maryland, floods in California, Missouri and Iowa, blizzards in Iowa and Nebraska, earthquakes in California and Maryland (he was less than 50 miles from the epicenter of a 6.2 quake that hit the east coast, the strongest one in over a century). and even was caught in the Mad Cow disease outbreak in England.

Science and Intelligence Agencies

A close friend and confidant of Margaret (Maggie) Sanders, daughter of Colonel Harlan Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame, it was through Maggie and her affiliation with the National Academy of Sciences he interviewed numerous Nobel prize winning scientists as well as metaphysical personalities Maggie knew from her life-long search for the Lost Continent of Atlantis.  Also through her Putnam was a participant in the MIT Media Lab - Society of the Mind with Professor Marvin Minsky, founder of artificial intelligence in Boston.

More recently Putnam worked with Victor Sheymov, a key KGB cold war defector to the US and with James Woolsey, former CIA Director under President Clinton, to establish an international computer security company, Invicta Networks, and to help publish books on intelligence agency activities.

He also works with CBA Pharma, Inc., a Kentucky pharmaceutical company, with a promising potential cure for cancer. CBA is the first firm to enter FDA Phase 3 human trials with a natural compound that results in the destruction of multi-drug resistant cells including cancer.

Of course the implications go way beyond cancer since most drug resistance happens in areas of drug over-prescription and saturation over the years such as treatment with antibodies, medications for depression, high blood pressure, etc.  Even diseases once thought wiped out are making comebacks because of their ability to mutate and most dangerous of all are the hospital-based drug resistant staff infections with their deadly consequences.

The Hopi Indians

Ever since his first visit to meet the Hopi Indians near the Grand Canyon in 1964 Jim has worked with indigenous spiritual leaders including the past three Hopi traditional spiritual leaders along with Navajo, Algonquin, Ute, Sioux, Australian Aborigine and many others to help preserve their cultures and their sacred ways.  He was honored to be invited to film part of the fulfillment of numerous sacred prophecies with the Hopi, Algonquin, Ute and Dali Lama.

On one of his many trips to Arizona the National Park Service archeological office had invited him to bring a film crew and shoot footage of a little known, ancient Indian site with a 12 mile stretch of undisturbed ancient wall paintings just above the Grand Canyon called Snake Gulch Canyon that could only be reached by horseback.

While driving to the site the evening before a coyote jumped in front of Putnam's van bringing it to a screeching halt, then disappeared.  The next morning Putnam's horse was startled by a snake tossing him 15 feet down a gulley where he cracked three ribs.  He finished over ten more hours riding to complete the shoot.  The Hopi told him the "trickster" coyote was sent to force Jim to take a long overdue rest.

Animal Rescues

Throughout his life he helped heal injured animals and birds his neighbors brought him.  His most memorable rescue took place recently in Southern Maryland one frigid winter day when he went into the bitter cold water up to his neck to save a drowning and sick Bald Eagle along the shore of the Potomac River.  It was saved, rehabilitated and Putnam got to release it back into nature.

From national politics to cyber security to potential pioneering medical breakthroughs, he still most enjoys music, writing and trying to help people, animals, places and things.  Among many current pursuits he is a songwriter through Steven Sharp, Sharp Objects Music Company of Nashville and his bands, Nashville Bound and John Galt Band are popular internet groups at MySpace, Soundclick, Indie Records and many other internet sites.

Media & Entertainment - News Reporting, Books, Music, Television & Publishing

Publishing

He designed a national marketing campaign and produced an album of Christian artists to introduce The Promise, a new CEV Bible translation making it the first Bible to be #1 on national best seller list in modern times.

Putnam is publisher of the popular Internet based Coltons Point Times newspaper with over 1,400 articles and columns online featuring multiple article investigative reports such as:

• Lyme Disease - America's Next Pandemic
• Our Broken Health Care System
• Federal Campaign Reform
• Politics and Political Parties
• Histories Mysteries about Southern Maryland
• GMO's - Truth and Myth
• Cyber Security - Are we really safe?
• The Rothschild Dynasty - a Trillionaires Delight
• and serialized excerpts from several Putnam books

Books Authored

• Words I Chose Not To Speak (poetry)
• Second Thoughts (poetry)
• Dancing the Tightrope

• The Joshua Chronicles
• Take Me Now God!
• Saviors of the 20th Century - Hitler & Stalin - The War of Annihilation between the Nazis and Communists
• Left Handed, Four Eyed, Small Town and Catholic, and they call me Lucky?

Television Shows

• Jim Henson's Muppet Babies, wrote several scripts for the TV series

• Flashpoint, created and produced a PBS weekly public service television program

• The Energy Show, A&E national broadcast - winner of ACE - Award for Cable Excellence (cable TV Emmy) Executive in charge of production
• Really Wild Animals, National Geographic TV series on CBS & Disney, 26 episodes, winner of one Emmy and nominated for 5 Emmys - Creative consultant for script and music & post production
• Dancing the Tightrope TV Series in development - producer, writer & composer

Music

• Bible Soundtrack - Max McLean and the Bible
• Ivy Hollow Theme - co-wrote with Academy award songwriter Dennis Matkosky
• Nashville Bound band - wrote 23 songs recorded by Nashville Bound in Nashville.
• John Galt Band - wrote 150 songs for Dancing the Tightrope TV series soundtrack The Story of a Life
• State Property band - executive in charge of production for A&E TV special and 6 music videos
• Ivy Hollow music - wrote I Had a Dream performed at first Martin Luther King, Jr. national holiday celebrations in Atlanta, GA and San Francisco, CA
• Currently additional 250+ songs in song catalog

Radio

• Created and produced nationally syndicated weekly radio show from Nashville called Family Values introducing Christian singers and authors

Organizations

• University of Arizona Alumni
• Beta Theta Pi National fraternity
• Omaha Press Club
• White House New Federalism Task Force
• MIT Society of the Mind
• AEC (Atomic Energy Commission) Radioactive Users license

The Roots of Country Music in America - Appalachia to Nashville

Most people probably have little understanding of the roots of country music in America because it has always been taken for granted that country is one of the core genres we have always had around. It is known as the heartbeat and soul of America and been around about as long as the Europeans have been here.

Over the years we may have heard country music we liked, some even crossed over to pop and rock charts, and many stars in other genres either started as country music singers or became famous and then cut a country song or album. But do we really know from whence it came?

When English speaking America was first being colonized in the 1600's the coastal areas were settled first, Virginia, Massachusetts and Maryland, all by 1634 and it did not take long for the European immigrants to make their way to the Appalachian Mountains, the Southern Appalachians that is, which included the Blue Ridge Mountain range and Cumberland Plateau. Western Virginia and Eastern Kentucky and Tennessee territories along with pieces of the Carolinas and Georgia made up the region which served as a barrier to westward expansion.

Immigrants came to the area because the coastal regions were already populated and with them came the Old World musical instruments were brought together in barn dances and celebrations by these hardy people settling the region. This was in the days before electricity, before electric guitars and synthesizers

The Irish fiddle, German dulcimer, Italian mandolin, Spanish guitar and African banjo were brought to these celebrations and played together in hillbilly jam sessions far from the operas and symphonies of the cities on the east coast. This came to be known as "Old Time" music.

In the 19th century some immigrant groups moved to the Texas area to settle and further integrated the hillbilly sound with Spanish, Mexican and Native American music and large dancehalls were built where the locals could gather and dance to the sounds. This was the final step in the evolution of the roots of Country Music.

Then came the 20th century with cars and roads and radio which brought down the barriers of communication and people from throughout the nation could hear this unique American creation. The first country recording was in 1921 and throughout the 1920's as radio expanded so did the country music.



Country musicians were great innovators ever since mixing the instruments from five counties up in the Appalachians and electricity, recording and touring gave them more and more opportunities to do this. Hillbilly music grew in popularity driven by the Carter Family and Jimmy Rodgers and in 1925 WSM-AM radio in Nashville started the first country music broadcast, on November 28, 1925, when the WSM Barn Dance was first broadcast. In time it would become the Grand Ole Opry under the guidance of people like Roy Acuff.

By the 1930's and Great Depression people were poor and the radio became the primary source of news and entertainment. Soon a fledgling movie industry introduced the Singing cowboys while radio was expanding the barn dances with legendary country shows being broadcast from Chicago to Texas to California. In the 1940's these shows introduced singers like Roy Acuff, Bill Haley, Eddie Arnold and singing cowboys like Gene Autry and Roy Rogers.



Bob Wills and his legendary Texas Playboys was among the innovators of country music when in 1935 he introduced drums to the band, a first, then became the first group with the electric guitar in 1938. Yet it was not until the early 1960's that the steel guitar and drums were fixtures in country bands.

Hillbilly music spawned Hillbilly Boogie by 1939 and a new country genre called Bluegrass emerged with the sound of Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs at the end World War II. By this time country music included Hillbilly, Boogie, Blues, Honky Tonk, Gospel and Rockabilly.



To the rest of the world country music was called Hillbilly until 1944 when the name was changed to Folk and Blues music. By 1949 it was labeled Country or Country Western, the latter referring to the singing cowboys of movies and then television. Honky Tonk saw the rise of Ernest Tubb, Floyd Tillman, the Maddox Brothers and Rose, Lefty Frizell and Hank Williams.



Along came the 1950's and country music changed again as Rockabilly dominated with Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins leading the way. From 1955-1960 ABC-TV became the first network with a nationwide country show called the Ozark Jubilee that showcased country stars to the nation. Elvis helped drive the cross-over between Rockabilly and Rock 'n Roll.

Late in the '50's came the Lubbock Sound of Buddy Holly and then there was a country backlash as the industry felt rock 'n roll was to dominate. Ray Price, Marty Robbins and Johnny Horton began to shift the music back to traditional country.

In the early 1960's the Nashville sound became dominant with producers like Chet Atkins, Owen Bradley and Billy Sherrill reviving the genre with legendary singers Patsy Cline, Jim Reeves and Eddy Arnold. Ray Charles introduced Country Soul in 1962 with his release of I Can't Stop Loving You. A new sound in Nashville called Countrypolitan was created featuring the sounds of Tammy Wynette and Charlie Rich. But soon the Nashville sound became stale.

Out west Honky Tonk and Western Swing were merged by Bob Wills and Lefty Frizell to form the Bakersfield Sound. It would encompass the diversity of different styles from Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, Tommy Collins and Wynn Stewart.



In other places like Lubbock, Tulsa and Austin the disappointment with the Nashville Sound and control of the record labels was causing an Outlaw movement. Inspired by the success of The Beatles, Bob Dylan and Rolling Stones in demanding creative control of their music and control of their songs, the Outlaws gravitated to Austin where Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson became the leaders.

Not only did their music change but their image as well. Gone were the clean cut, clean shaven cowboys of old and in were the long haired radical Outlaws of the future. Jessie Colter, wife of Waylon, was one of the female pioneers while Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard soon joined forces.

With The Beatles astounding success blending rock and pop music Nashville was hungry to tap into the crossover sound needed to reach the mainstream markets. Others, seeking a return to the "old values" of rock 'n roll, created a new genre called Country Rock.

The Byrds, Flying Burrito Brothers, Allman Brothers, Marshall Tucker Band, Poco, Buffalo Springfield and Eagles exploded onto the music scene as Southern Rock and Heartland became new subgenre spin offs. Ever since there has been a tug of war between traditional country and country rock or country pop as stars like Dolly Parton, Rosanne Cash, Linda Ronstadt, Juice Newton, Alabama, Hank Williams, Jr., Brooks and Dunn, Garth Brooks, Dwight Yoakum, Shania Twain, Faith Hill, and Keith Urban helped move country towards rock over the years.

By the mid 1970's Olivia Newton John and John Denver captured the Country Pop crossover market and powered their way to CMA and Grammy Awards with multi million selling hits. Soon a whole new group of country performers would take up the mantle.

George Straight, Alan Jackson, Clint Black, Toby Keith, Reba McEntire, Kenny Chesney, Alison Krauss, Vince Gill and Tim McGraw among others perform the Classic Country style today while the pop crossover comes from new artists like Carrie Underwood from American Idol fame and newest sensation Taylor Swift who have breathed new life into the country music industry.

What is next? Who knows. Still, those who understand that country music is an ever-changing genre that morphs into a variety of styles depending on the needs of the people and the innovation of the artists, must feel good as a broad range of artists currently dominate the radio airwaves and rule the concert circuit.

As the major record labels collapse, the radio stations strangle on their own automated programming and the formula music once again becomes stale we know it is the time when country music always rediscovers itself. Nashville will be a lot better as a result, all country artists will benefit, the public will reap the rewards of new and innovative country music and history will once again record that the American country sound once again became relevant in a time of need and a time of truth.
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