James possesses the rare ability to be equally at home in the worlds of classical guitar, jazz, and bluegrass dobro. He has performed at such New York area venues as Irving Plaza, The Knitting Factory, Gracie Mansion, Trinity Church, The Wetlands, Toad's Place, as well as the Juilliard School and Yale University. His primary teachers on classical guitar have been Kevin Gallagher and Jerry Willard. James has also attended master classes or lessons with David Tanenbaum, Frederic Hand, and Benjamin Verdery. He was accepted into the Christopher Parkening master class at Montana State Univerisity in 2010. James attended the University of Michigan and Columbia University where he studied jazz and music education with Reggie Workman, Donald Walden, and Rodney Whitaker. While at Michigan, James was drawn to the sound of the dobro by the work of Jerry Douglas. He has since become a dobro and steel fixture on the New York acoustic music scene performing and recording as a band member with Citigrass and The Five Deadly Venoms. In addition, James has performed on guitar or dobro with such diverse artists as Mike Gordon (Phish), jazz great Gene Bertoncini, and as a soloist with the Mobile Symphony Orchestra Pops. He has performed at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, The Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival, Craftsbury Chamber Players Festival in Vermont, and the Battery Park Summer Concert Series in Manhattan. James has also enjoyed the opportunity to open for Ricky Skaggs, Norah Jones, Tony Rice, Mark O'Connor, Junior Brown, Double Trouble, and Darol Anger. He was a top prize winner at the 2006 Roxbury Flatpicking Guitar Contest and was a finalist in the Telluride Bluegrass Festival Band Competition in 2009. Combining his performance with music education, James has taught in the public schools of NYC and Vermont and currently teaches private lessons in Westchester County.