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With twelve CD releases of original music, JP Jones is Rhode Island's most prolific independent recording artist. A classically trained composer who grew up with the rock and soul music of the 1960s, Jones' recorded work has been compared to giants like Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan and contemporaries Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen and Mark Knopfler. Best known for his folk-influenced songwriting, he's been hailed "one of the best American singer-songwriters" (Kevin McCarthy, Kevin's Celtic & Folk Music CD Reviews) and "one of the best songwriters in the indie world" (Jan Best, Independent Songwriter Web Magazine). Working without the benefit of a major label marketing machine his records have nevertheless been played at hundreds of radio stations charting multiple times on the international folkdj_l (www.folkradio.org) and New Age Voice airplay lists.
As a performer, Jones has been at it more than 3 decades. He released a self-titled LP on the Columbia/Windfall label in 1973 and did an arena tour at that time. Over the years he's shared bills with a diverse and prominent musical cast that includes Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt, Little Feat and Tim Hardin (just to name a few). Today he gigs mostly as a solo performer playing house concerts, coffeehouses, outdoor festivals and the occasional bar & grill. Affectionately dubbed an "obscure legend" by friends and admirers, Jones has a following who regularly attend shows and fans who collect his extensive CD catalog.
Jones was named after a great uncle and born in 1949 in the Wakefield, Rhode Island hospital Dr. John Paul Jones founded. As a boy he tried and failed to learn the piano from teachers in his hometown of Springfield, Massachusetts. Eventually he taught himself note by note memorizing the soloist's part of Sergei Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto. He graduated from Wilbraham Academy on scholarship and then went to Baptist Bible Seminary in Clarks Summit, PA. A fundamentalist Christian education took, or didn't take, depending on your point of view, and after three semesters he went on to Holyoke Community College, finally receiving a B.A. in music composition from Amherst College, again on scholarship. A self-described late-bloomer, he began writing songs in his late teens, taught himself guitar by playing records at half speed, formed a band, survived the break-up, and suddenly found himself with recording offers from Atlantic and Columbia before he was out of school.
"To be alive is a great privilege. To be in a position to do the work you love to do is nothing less than a state of grace," says Jones. He should know. JP recorded that first album for CBS' Columbia/Windfall label ("A student work as far as I'm concerned," says Jones) at a time when all the major labels were searching for male solo acts. The album was a commercial failure and his career was caught in the crossfire as the relationship between Columbia and Windfall became acrimonious and ended in lawsuit. "They told me at the time that nothing I ever wrote would be produced," say Jones. "Meanwhile they refused to release me from my contract asserting their right of ownership of everything I wrote for the term of the deal. I was unable to write anything for the next five years. Fortunately on the day after the contract expired I was able to write about 100 songs."
Cut adrift in the late 70's, Jones pursued a second major label deal by submitting demo tapes and playing New York City showcase gigs at clubs like Folk City and CBGBs. It was during this time that he caught the eye of producers John Hammond Sr. (Billie Holiday, Bob Dylan) and Ed Freeman (Tim Hardin, Don McLean). Hammond visited Jones at home and offered to take him into the studio. Freeman and Jones collaborated on an additional set of demos. Neither relationship produced a second album.
By the early 1980s it was clear to Jones that his future in music would be as an independent recording artist. He fronted the New York City based folk/rock band John Train (who took their name in tribute to the Phil Ochs pseudonym) and released and promoted two independently produced 45 rpm singles. Over the next decade he supported himself by taking a day job as a commercial artist while continuing to write songs and doing open mic solo gigs at clubs he'd headlined just a few years before.
Everything changed in the 1990s. Jones moved back to New England and in a series of small steps began to reconnect as a performer with the local folk circuit. He took coffeehouse gigs and had live performances featured on compilation CDs in support of such non-profit projects as the WWUH Folk Next Door fund-raisers, the Rhode Island Songwriters Association's 12 Steps of Christmas and the Hope Center of Providence's Our Invincible Summer. Digital technology brought down the cost of recording and duplicating, and made making high quality records easy and relatively affordable. Jones dug in.
What's followed is a remarkable twelve disc -- and growing -- musical legacy. Working at home with a PARIS (think Protools, but different) digital audio workstation, Jones now acts as his own engineer and has recorded several solo acoustic albums at home. He's also used the system to record overdubs on the "more produced" studio tracks and done the final mixes for the last eight CDs on PARIS. Other Jones' PARIS recording credits include Les Sampou's 2001 critically acclaimed solo acoustic Borrowed and Blue release. "The purpose of production is to make itself invisible," says Jones. "What the listener should hear is the song -- the melody, lyrics and recurrent musical themes."
After 12 CD releases, much of Jones' extensive back catalog of songs remains unrecorded -- and he keeps writing. Happiest when he's working on a new project, the cornerstone of Jones restless spiritual searching and artistic ambition appears to culminate with each new release. 2006's Magical Thinking is his latest. Ten months in the making it's an eclectic, fine and fully-realized disc from a great songwriter.
Discography:
John Paul Jones LP Columbia/Windfall 1973
Johnny Go Lightly b/w It'll All Blow Over 7" single Strider Records 1980
I Don't Feel Guilty b/w Wendy 12" single Self Released 1982
Voluntown CD Vision Company 1991
Broken Open CD Vision Company 1994
Bard CD Vision Company 1997
Angels on the Road CD Vision Company 1998
Broken Open - Reissue CD Vision Company 1999
Ashes CD Vision Company 1999
Back to Jerusalem CD Vision Company 2000
Salvation Street CD Vision Company 2001
Life and Death CD Vision Company 2003
Jeremiah CD Vision Company 2004
Thugs and Lovers CD Vision Company 2005
Magical Thinking CD Vision Company 2006
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