Griffin met Robb Royer through Maria Yolanda Aguayo (Griffin's future wife). The two hit it off immediately and became life-time collaborators both as performers and writers. Griffin was a staff writer with Viva Publishing and managed to get them to hire Royer as his co-writer in 1967. Viva was resistant to hiring Royer and instead wanted Griffin to write with another staff writer with the company. According to Royer, Griffin convinced Viva to hire Royer by threatening "I will be writing with him. Do you really want to give away half the publishing on all those songs?". James Griffin sang songs that were featured in a few episodes of the TV series "Ironside" in the late sixties.