Motor City-based guitarist Jim McCarty first surfaced as a member of Mitch Ryder's backing band the Detroit Wheels, making his bow on the group's 1966 debut LP Take a Ride. Beginning with 1968's Expressway to Your Skull, he backed Buddy Miles, concurrently recording tracks with Jimi Hendrix before joining the short-lived band Cactus; relatively quiet during the mid-'70s, McCarty appeared only on Bob Seger's Seven and Bob "Catfish" Hodge's Dynasaurs and Alleycats (both 1974) before returning to action full-time in 1977 with the group the Rockets. Following that band's early-1980s dissolution, McCarty joined the Detroit Blues Band, later fronting his own group, Mystery Train.