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Pre-Aerosmith YearsPrior to joining Aerosmith, Jimmy was one of New York City's most in-demand session guitarists as well as a member of the RCA-signed band Flame. His work can be found on Flame's two abums, as well as recordings by Ian Lloyd, Robert Fleischman, Stevie Nicks and many more... James Crespo Junior was born in Brooklyn, New York on July 5th 1955 . Jimmy took to the guitar at an early age, the Yardbirds, Stones, and Beatles being his early influences. In his teenage years he was in a "notorius club band" by the name of Anaconda, before graduating to Flame, his first recording band. Flame, made two albums on RCA, Jimmy contributing three songs to the debut album "Flame" (1976), and once again playing guitars and singing background vocals on "Queen of the Neighbourhood" (1977) Flame at the time being under the management of legendary producer Jimmy Iovine, who had previously produced John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen and Simple Minds. Flame was only moderately successful despite short tours with Bachman Turner Overdrive and Nektar, an opportunity to tour with Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street as well as contribute to their records unfortunately falling through. 
Jimmy left Flame in 1978 to pursue session playing working firstly
with former Journey frontman and songwriter Robert Fleischman on his
"Perfect Stranger" (1979) album, before working with Ian Lloyd on his"Goosebumps" album (1979). Lloyd's album assembled a who's who of music industry talent, including contributions from future Aerosmtih collaborators Bruce Fairbairn (production) and Jim Vallance on keyboards, bass and drums. The album also featured the talents of Lou Gramm, Rick Ocasek and Benjamin Orr from the Cars and Mick Jones of Foreigner.  Interestingly, Jimmy was credited on this album as playing guitars and "Godzilla". Jimmy explains: "We referred to heavily distorted guitar (power chords) as Godzilla guitars. Bruce (Fairbairn)and myself came up with that. Ian Lloyd was from a group Stories,early 70's. During the recording of that album this guy Ian listened all day long during sessions to baseball games. Strange. Funny."
He later worked on albums for Helen Schneider, Stevie Nicks (uncredited guitar on "Bella Donna"and anumber of other artists. But it was when David Krebs, Aerosmith's
manager at the time, caught wind of Jimmy writing some new
material with Flame singer Marge Raymond for a possible Flame
reunion that Jimmy was first approached by the Aerosmith camp...
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