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Billy Jones

Photo by Karin Braun

Underground Delta-Based Bluez Artist

Billy Jones was born on November 21, 1953 and raised in North Little Rock, Arkansas, where he and his family lived in his grandfathers boarding house/café. The room that they lived in was next to the main room of the café that had a bar and a juke box that played all the great blues records by Howlin' Wolf, Elmore James, B.B. King, Lowell Fulson, Bobby "Blue" Bland, Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed, Lightnin' Hopkins, Big Joe Turner and all the blues giants who became Billy Jones' heroes as he grew up listening to those songs. The local field workers played that juke box at the end of their workday of picking cotton or plowing the fields while drinking beer and wine and dancing to the music in that café. There were also the live musicians who would come to perform at the café. These are the people and sounds that would shape Billy Jones' view of the world and instill in him a true feel and love of the blues music. Billy Jones idolized these entertainers and by the age of eleven he had convinced his dad, who would sometimes work as a driver for Sonny Boy Williamson and Howlin' Wolf, to buy him a guitar... it was love at first sight... from that point on, Billy Jones was rarely seen without his guitar, as he spent most of his playtime learning and imitating the moves of the blues stars that he loved. As Billy Jones grew into his teen years and young adulthood he became understudy to such blues greats as Little Johnny Taylor, Larry "Totsie" Davis, Calvin Levy, Rufus Thomas, Cal Valentine, Richard "Dimples" Fields, The Loving Sisters, Art Porter and many others. Billy Jones quickly became an accomplished guitarist and vocalist in his own right. A natural and gifted performer, Billy Jones formed his own group in his early twenties and toured numerous military installations all over the United States for many years as The Incredible Rock City Band. Billy Jones has been touring and performing professionally since his teens and has backed-up or recorded with or performed on shows with Vernon Garrett, Willie Clayton, Chocolate Milk, Chaka Chan, The Bar-Kays, Chick Willis, Willie Cobb and many others... Billy Jones has evolved into a musician who plays a music style that puts a contemporary spin on the traditional sounds of his old skool teachers... he calls it tha' Bluez! He represents a new generation of underground delta-based bluez artists. Billy Jones is the real deal, and plays music for today's music fans... it ain't your grampa's music, or that same ol' predictable blues stuff that you may find at big corporate record companies. Billy Jones has developed a sound that presents the music from a more urbanized and street-wise point of view, while being firmly rooted in the standard blues tradition. Bllly Jones signed a record deal with Black and Tan Records and his first release on this label (tha' Bluez) was recorded in December 2004 and released in February 2005. The CD got lots of airplay and positive reviews. His first European tours took place in September 2005 and March 2006. The readers of SOUL BAG, the leading blues/soul magazine in France, voted Billy Jones' tha' Bluez on number 3 of the 10 Best Blues Releases of 2005.

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