James Dearborn, 62

James Dearborn, 62, passed away peacefully on Saturday, May 18th at his home in Saugatuck, Michigan after a long battle with prostate cancer.

Born in 1962, he lived on Central Avenue until 1976. After graduating Howard Junior High School, where many knew him as “Jamie”, he moved with his family to Harwich Port, Massachusetts.

Dearborn attended Cape Cod Tech, a state-of-the-art technical high school where an instructor told him that he had a knack for welding. This eventually led to him specializing in working with anodized aluminum. He also became interested in blues music, at which he became proficient on guitar and harmonica.

In the mid-nineteen eighties, Dearborn and his then wife moved back to the Midwest and settled in Zeeland, Michigan. At his business, Towers Unlimited, he crafted custom products that he delivered to boat owners throughout the Great Lakes. He also worked for local businesses, at nuclear power plants and built boats from the ground up in Saugatuck.

Over the years, Dearborn fronted a number of blues bands and was passionate about ‘authentic’ blues. The most recent was James Reeser and the Backseat Drivers, a band with a preference for jump blues that was locally recognized and appeared throughout southwest Michigan and at Memphis blues festivals. One of his bands was offered a contract by the prestigious Chicago-based blues label Alligator Records but had to decline the offer due to obligations of Dearborn’s own business.

In recent years, he travelled to Wilmette in fall for bicycle rides with friends. Dearborn is survived by his wife Kathleen, his daughter Veronica, a son-in-law, Daniel Dearborn (Carwile), cousins John Shaw and his wife Fesa, Chris Shaw, Etola Zinni (Reeser), Carol Reeser and several nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by his parents, Richard and Georgia and brothers Richard, Randall, Robert, Joseph and Timothy. He will be greatly missed by many friends from his days in Wilmette, on Cape Cod and in Michigan.