text: Biography James took up the clarinet at the age of eight, switching to sax when he was ten having spent his early teen years in New Rochelle, New York.  He became musically influenced by the R&B Motown genre and saxophonist Grover Washington, Jr. When he was fourteen his family moved to Los Angeles, where he joined a fusion band that opened for acts like Flora Purim and the Yellowjackets. Another member of this early band was John Shanks, now a successful pop producer.  James eventually received a degree in history from UCLA, but began playing music full-time after graduation. James learned to play keyboards and in 1985 he joined Morris Day's band. His R&B influence was further strengthened by seven years of touring and sessions as a sideman with Day, The Isley Brothers, Bobby Caldwell, Randy Crawford, Teena Marie and others. It was on the road with Crawford in 1986 that he earned his now-famous moniker, when his physique led a bandmate to joke "We'll have to start calling you 'Boney' James!"
  In the early 1990s, while on tour with Bobby Caldwell's band, he met engineer and producer Paul Brown, beginning a 10-year period of collaboration.
  In 1992 he released his debut album as a leader, Trust, on the independent record label Spindletop Records. Following the record's success, he was signed by the Warner Brothers label in 1994, on which he released the RIAA Certified Gold Records Seduction, Sweet Thing and Body Language albums.