The Narrators

Welcome to The Narrators, a two-man band from Wisconsin that blends elements of rock, bluegrass, country, blues, folk, and power pop into a unique brand of Americana music. The band was formed in 2003 by Tom Dupuis and myself, Jim Felhofer.  Prior to The Narrators Tom and I played together in a cover band called The Fret Boys that featured Tom on drums, Claude Chmiel on bass, and me on guitar - with Tom and I taking turns on lead vocals.  The Fret Boys played their last gig in July 2003 and shortly after that Tom purchased recording equipment to record some songs he had written.  In October of that year Tom invited me to join him to work on a few original songs of mine - and that was the beginning of The Narrators.

We approached our new band as a part-time hobby to be enjoyed during the long Wisconsin winters.   Both of us wrote new songs year round and we’d get together during the winter months to record them.  By 2008 we’d written and recorded enough songs for our first album Chapter One, which was release in April of that year. 

The following winter we began working on new material for our second album, Time Takes a Toll. The album featured ten original songs and was release in April 2011.  

After taking a year off we began working on our third album, Session Road, in January 2013.  Most of the songs for the album were written after Time Takes a Toll was released, but some were written several years earlier.  Two examples of the latter are 200 Miles and I Get the Feeling which I wrote in 1998, and were part of The Fret Boys regular set lists.  The Session Road album was released in April 2016.

A side note about 200 Miles – Tom, Claude, and I recorded that song at Shade Tree Studio in Stevens Point, Wisconsin in 2000 to use as a demo song for The Fret Boys.

Following the release of Session Road we again took some time off before starting our fourth album, Long Gone, in January 2018.  Our progress was slowed a year later when Tom was diagnosed with cancer in January 2019. Working on the project wasn’t easy for Tom but we were able to keep it moving forward as he went through treatment.  Progress was further slowed by the outbreak of COVID in early 2020. We managed to continue working remotely on the album by sharing digital track files back and forth. The project was about half done in spring of 2021 when Tom became too sick to work on it anymore. Tom died on October 1, 2021 at the age of 57.

I went back to work on Long Gone a few months after Tom’s death and completed the album in August 2022.  Long Gone was released in September 2022.

Long Gone will be the last full album of new material from The Narrators, but it may not be the last new music you hear from us. There are several songs that Tom and I started to record but never finished. I hope to complete those songs in the future and post them on this website. There’s also a Christmas song Tom wrote that’s almost done. I plan to finish it and post on this site for the 2022 holiday season.

Please use the Contact page on this site to reach me if you would like more information about The Narrators.

Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoy our music.

Jim Felhofer - The Narrators