Jim Wearne
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October 24, 1950
Jim Wearne | |
|---|---|
 Jim Wearne at the Celtic Nations Heritage Festival in Louisiana United States in 1998 | |
| Born | James Richard Wearne October 24, 1950 St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. |
| Died | January 15, 2026 (aged 75) |
Jim Wearne (/ˈwɛrn/; October 24, 1950 – January 15, 2026) was a Cornish-American musician who lived most of his life in the Chicago area of northern Illinois.[1][2][3][4] Wearne was born in St. Louis, Missouri and raised in the Chicago area.[1][2] He studied at Southern Illinois University, receiving a degree in theatre in 1972.[5] After graduating, he worked as a stagehand for musical theater productions including My Fair Lady and plays including California Suite. Wearne married in 1975 and had two daughters, Elisabeth Fisher and Catherine Wearne-Soto.
Wearne's first recorded album was Songs of Cornwall: Captured Alive! (1997), which was recorded live at the Potomac Celtic Festival in Leesburg, Virginia.[1] Wearne sang predominantly in English but did include some Cornish language music in his recordings, including "Delo Syvy" on his 2001 album Howl Lowen.[1] He wrote original music and performed some folk and traditional music as well, including "White Rose", "Truro Agricultural Show", "Little Lize", "Trelawny", and "Lamorna".[6][7][8] Wearne often sang about Cornish and Cornish-American communities, performing for the first time in Cornwall in 2002.[9] He was made a bard of Gorsedh Kernow, the Cornish association of bards in that same year, taking the bardic name Canor Gwanethtyr or "Singer of the Prairie".[10][5] The Gorsedh wrote that Wearne was made a bard "for services to Cornish Music in America".[11]
Wearne is descended from Cornish emigrants who moved from near Wendron, Cornwall to Michigan in the United States in the late nineteenth century.[5] Wearne included The Beatles, American folk musicians of the 1960s, blues musicians, and Cornish musicians Trev Lawrence and Harry Glasson as influences on his music.[12][2]
