Jim Boyer in 1997

Jim Boyer performing at the LaurelThirst Public House on May 11, 1997. The musician and his bands were regulars at the venue. (Brent Wojahn/Staff)

(Brent Wojahn/Staff)

Portland musician Jim Boyer, a scene regular with the Freak Mountain Ramblers and other groups, has died, a number of friends and colleagues confirmed on Thursday. He was 47.

The hardworking musician had been expected on stage at the LaurelThirst Public House on Thursday night, but instead the show will be an impromptu memorial.

"A bunch of his friends are hoping to gather there and raise a glass and maybe sing a song or two in his memory. 9pm if you want to come share a bunch of bittersweet tears," Lewi Longmire wrote on Facebook. "This blows, but it hurts less if we share the burden."

Update: "He was probably the biggest-hearted individual that I'd ever met," Longmire told the Oregonian on Thursday night. "The moment I came into the musical community, he just instantly embraced me and he did this for other people as well... If you're a musician and you're into it... you were welcome. He was glad to have you."

Longmire told the story of a songwriter's round at the LaurelThirst, where Longmire was asked last-minute to come up and sing one or two during another musician's set. Afterward, Boyer handed him a few dollars. "You play, you get paid," Boyer told him.

"He had no ego about what he did," Longmire said. "He saw the stage as a place of honor."

Longmire thought that Boyer had played the LaurelThirst over 1,000 times on his own and with the Freak Mountain Ramblers, and the venue came up often in the memories people shared on Thursday.

"A fixture at LaurelThirst Public House from nearly day one, Jimmy's big heart and over-sized talent was woven into the fabric of so many projects - the hole he leaves will never be mended," Lisa Lepine wrote on Facebook. "Getting to work with Jimmy and his bands on the 'Live at LaurelThirst' compilation albums was such a privilege...and to have booked him and the Freaks to open for Patti Smith at the Bite of Oregon was a coup - I thought then and still do, that there was no other Portland act more deserving of that honor."

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Boyer's cause of death was not known at press time. In 2013, the Jeremy Wilson Foundation launched a relief fund for Boyer, who had faced two hospital stays, including an emergency shoulder surgery and an infection.

Boyer sang, wrote and played guitar with the Freak Mountain Ramblers starting in 1999, though the group's members already had years in the Portland scene.

"The Freak Mountain Ramblers are old pros," the Oregonian wrote in a 2003 review. "Nobody has anything to prove, just some good music to play."

Beyond the LaurelThirst, over the years, the group were regulars at the Alberta Street Public House, Artichoke Music and the festival scene. They released a number of albums, starting with 1999's self-titled debut and leading toward 2008's "Flxible." Boyer also stepped out solo, leading his Jimmy Boyer Band and releasing an album of his own, "Time Spent," in 2004.

Boyer hitchhiked to Portland in 1989, according to a press bio, playing in roots groups and the rock act Glowing Corn. The musician had previously spent time in Cleveland, New York and Flagstaff, Arizona.

-- David Greenwald

dgreenwald@oregonian.com

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