James Matthew Valentine was born in about 1962 in Ballarat. His father was a car salesman and his mother taught elocution and was a part-time radio announcer. He has two older brothers. He attended Ballarat Grammar School where he learned saxophone, he described his performances in the local area, "a really bad jazz rock fusion gig." In the early 1980s Valentine relocated to Melbourne to attend university, he later recalled "First year I spent studying, and then I started getting gigs, and I didn't pay much attention to uni after that because I wanted to be a jazz musician."
Musical collaborations
In 1982 James Valentine joined Joe Camilleri's group, Jo Jo Zep. Valentine, on saxophone, and Kate Ceberano, on lead vocals, were members of Diana Boss and the Extremes, a covers band which performed The Supremes material. Other members included James Freud on bass guitar, Barton Price on drums and Zan Abeyratne on co-lead vocals. He described his experience, "The rhythm section of that band was The Models. When that finished, they asked me to go on tour with them and then I never left. All of a sudden I was in this pop band wearing black leather jackets." Valentine joined Models in late 1984, when they relocated to Sydney and he played saxophone with them until 1987, the group broke up in June of the following year. As a member of Models he appears on their studio albums, Out of Mind, Out of Sight and Models' Media. Valentine joined Absent Friends on saxophone and clarinet in 1989, they recorded a lone album, Here's Looking Up Your Address. He also worked for Wendy Matthews on her debut solo album, Émigré.
Radio and TV presenter
Valentine has been a music and TV journalist and radio and TV presenter. He was the host of The Afternoon Show on ABC TV, children's afternoon TV series, from February 1987 until 1990. He continued at the ABC as a presenter of TV TV. As a radio presenter he worked on 666 ABC Canberra and currently presents an afternoon show on 702 ABC Sydney. Valentine wrote and presented comedy sketches on air for the ABC's Humour Australia website.
Author
Valentine is also the author of a series of books for teenage boys, beginning with the sci-fi novel JumpMan. As of January 2010 Valentine narrates the Australian version of Come Dine With Me.
