An Interview with One of My Favorite Musicians about His Famous Friend
November 7, 2023
First, let me set the story straight. I have three favorite musicians and they happen to be my very talented brothers!
Second, let me give some background to this interview.
On a June day in 2016, as I finished a run in Gage Park, I saw a crew at work in the Veterans Park area. A statue was being erected, but a canvas covered its identity. I walked over to a worker and asked if it was the statue “Homage” by Jim Brothers and he said yes, it was. I had met the world-renowned sculptor when he was at Gage Park four or five years before when funds were being raised to put this statue there. I’ll tell you the rest of the story at the end of this blog. For now, let me introduce my brother, Gary Kirkland, whose home is Kansas City.
Tell me a little about yourself. I have been playing the guitar for 54 years. For 25 years, I drove a Kansas City Metro bus. Now, I have found my nitch performing in retirement homes and Hospice.
How did you meet Jim Brothers? Jim played the washboard in the Alfred Packer Memorial String Band in Lawrence. I heard him play a few times and we became friends. That was 1980. Jim passed away in 2013 at age 72.
Over the years, he was a police officer in a small town in Kansas, a schoolteacher, social worker, and he built an airplane and flew it. He also restored old cars and motorcycles.
Tell me about some of his statues.
He is best known for his six bronze statues for the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia. Bedford was chosen for the memorial because on D-Day 25 men from Bedford landed on Normandy.
Veterans at VFW Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri. When Jim was working on the Vietnam soldier, I was with him when he was working on the piece and welding the armature (the frame). Jim said—“Will you hold these pliers while I weld this piece?” I told him—“I drive the Broadway Bus Route on Saturdays and if I can tell my riders I helped build that, then I will hold the pliers for you.” And I did—and I did.
Dwight D. Eisenhower at the National Statuary Hall in Washington, D.C. When the statue was placed there, he was the only living artist to have a permanent piece in the Capitol.
“From The Ashes” at The Lawrence Visitors Center in Lawrence, Kansas. It honors those who have sacrificed their lives while on military duty or as civil servants in the fire departments, law enforcement agencies, emergency medical service of Douglas County. It is 15 feet in height and Jim had to build another studio to complete it.
“ET at the Barn Dance.” Jim said he had to do all this serious stuff and “every now and then I have to get away from that and do something whimsical.”
“Not why the chicken crossed the road, but how?” This is another one of his whimsical works, taken in his front yard.
My favorite is the one he did before he got well-known and was pretty poor. He needed materials and so he went out back and cut up a couple of Volkswagens with a torch. That’s what he used to do “The Indian on the Horse Shooting a Buffalo.” It’s been on display in several places.
Now, to finish my story. You can understand why I was excited to see the Jim Brothers’ statue being erected at Gage Park. Generous contributors had made this possible. The statue was dedicated later that week. The statue depicts a soldier pausing to pay respect for a fallen comrade. Homage is a word that is not often used today, but it is the appropriate word as one looks at the expression of respect on the soldier’s face.
Since Veterans Day is coming in a few days, I want to pay homage to our veterans and to Jim Brothers for his gift to Veterans Park in Topeka, Kansas.
