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It can be easy to believe that once a person enters into adulthood and forges a career in their respective field, that their path is set. That whatever they are doing in their career, be it as a doctor, lawyer or plumber, and whatever permutations their familial lives may take, is what the rest of their life will look like. That trajectory is completely fulfilling for many, but for Jim Stanard, who’d enjoyed a successful actuarial career, it wasn’t quite enough.

“I retired from full-time business work in 2005 and thought to myself, ‘how am I going to spend my time?’”, says Stanard, who’d played guitar while growing up in the Philadelphia area. “I decided to see if I could get back into my music.”

So Stanard began playing, picking away at his guitar, taking lessons that morphed into a stint at the Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp in Los Angeles and vocal lessons with former rock artist Kip Winger. Stanard moved to Sarasota in 2015 and started playing covers, particularly of folk rock and Americana, when the next challenge came: writing original music.

Soon came the albums, with a sound reminiscent of folk-rock legends like Bob Dylan, Kris Kristofferson and even Bruce Springsteen. First was 2018’s Bucket List, then 2020’s Color Outside the Lines and 2021’s EP Soultrain Sessions which featured covers of songs by artists such as Jason Isbell, Townes Van Zandt and Leonard Cohen. “They say that you need to write 100 songs before you’re really ready to write well,” says Stanard. “I’d say that my songwriting technique is much better than it was back when I began and I’ve clearly become a better singer than I was when I released my first album.”

Currently, Stanard is releasing singles from his third full-length studio album, 2025’s Magical, including Too Much Fun, a groovy, humorous track accompanied by an animated music video. Magical also features the historical ballad Where The West Was Won, which tells the story of the displacement of Indigenous peoples, particularly of the Cherokee Nation.

“I grew up on story songs. One of the early songwriting techniques I learned was that when you’re writing a song, you should imagine that you’re actually writing a video,” says Stanard. “You’re trying to influence what pictures the audience has in their heads while listening to the song.”

Provided photo.

To view the music video for Too Much Fun click here.