⬇️ JOHNNY JONES ⬇️
(6CD)
BIOGRAPHY
Jones was born in 1936 and moved to Memphis at age 13. He moved with his
mother to Chicago in the early '50s, in time to learn from and share
stages with the likes of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf. For a time, Jones
shared an apartment with harmonica player Walter McCollum, and together,
the pair formed a small group that worked regularly with harmonica player
Junior Wells and guitarist Freddie King.
After tiring of the long Chicago winters, Jones moved south again, this
time to Nashville, to pursue a career as a studio guitarist. He formed a
band in the early '60s, the Imperial Seven. That band worked regularly at
the famous New Era Club in Nashville. While working in studios with the
Imperial Seven, blues-rock master Jimi Hendrix would come sit in from time
to time. Also in the 1960s, Jones played rhythm guitar along with Clarence
"Gatemouth" Brown in the house band for a Dallas TV show, The Beat.
In 1968 he formed a new band, the King Casuals, who cut several singles
for Peachtree. By the end of the 1970s, frustrated by the feast-or-famine
nature of a bluesman's income and irregular pay schedules, Jones retired,
aside from an occasional stint playing guitar for Bobby "Blue" Bland when
his tour bus would be making its way through Tennessee. Around Nashville
in the late '90s, Jones accompanied the likes of Earl Gaines, Roscoe
Shelton, Charles Walker, and others at local clubs.
He finally released his debut album under his own name, I Was Raised on
the Blues, in 1999. Two years later, he released Blues Is in the House for
the Toronto-based Northern Blues Music label; the album was very well
received by college and public radio DJs. Johnny Jones died in October
2009 at the age of 73, having long remained one of the stars of
Nashville's often overlooked blues club scene.