Nashville blues artist Johnny Jones has died at the age of 73 years old. A familiar figure on the Music City's blues and soul scene of the 1960s, Jones was found dead by an exterminator that was scheduled to spray his apartment. No cause of death has been released, pending an autopsy by the medical examiner's office.
Born in 1936, Jones had living in Memphis as a teen before moving with his mother to Chicago during the early-1950s. A self-taught guitarist, Jones was in a small blues group that played with both harp legend Junior Wells and guitarist Freddie King. Unaccustomed to the cold Chicago winters, however, Jones moved back to the south, landing in Nashville.
Down On Jefferson Street
In the "Music City" during the early-1960s, Jones found a thriving blues and R&B scene, mostly centered on the city's Jefferson Street and anchored by the famous New Era Club. Jones formed the Imperial 7, playing often at the New Era, where a young soldier from Fort Campbell, Kentucky named Jimi Hendrix would come and sit in on guitar.
Jones mentored Hendrix for a couple of years before the guitarist left for New York City, fame and fortune. "For two years, (Hendrix) was under my wing. I had what he had to have. I had that lowdown smell of Mississippi in mine," Jones said of his own guitar style in an interview with The Tennessean newspaper. One of Nashville blues community's favorite stories is that Hendrix challenged his teacher to a six-string duel at Club Baron during the early-1960s, with Jones coming out the winner based on the audience's applause.
Blues Is In The House
Jones would stay busy throughout the 1960s. He played guitar behind Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown on the Nashville-produced R&B music TV show The!!!!Beat and was a member of the house band for the Night Train TV show. For a short while, Jones fronted the King Casuals, a band formed by Hendrix in the early-60s as the King Kasuals. Jones also toured with soul-blues giant Bobby "Blue" Bland. But by the 1970s, the guitarist had tired of the musician's daily struggle for dollars-and-cents, and Jones retired from performing.
During the late-1990s, though, Jones got back into the music business, backing R&B singers like Charles Walker and Roscoe Shelton in local Nashville nightclubs. In 1999, Jones released his first solo album, I Was Raised On The Blues, a long overdue showcase for his underrated guitar skills. A couple of years later, he recorded Blues Is In The House for the Northern Blues label, earning Jones widespread critical acclaim. Later that year, In The House, a live album of Jones backing the dynamic soul singer Charles Walker (now with the Dynamites) was released.
Night Train To Nashville
As a bluesman, Jones was relatively obscure, yet his presence could be felt on Nashville's growing blues scene during the late-1990s and early-00s. Jones and his Jefferson Street colleagues were recognized for their musical contributions by Night Train to Nashville: Music City Rhythm & Blues, 1945-1970, an exhibit that ran at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum from March 2004 through December 2005. Jones (with the Imperial 7) also had a song placed on the Night Train To Nashville double-CD that was produced by Daniel Cooper and Michael Gray to accompany the exhibit.
The talented guitarist continued to perform, appearing at the ninth annual Jefferson Street Jazz & Blues Festival in June 2009. "Anytime I get the chance to play my guitar, it's more than money. It's therapy for me," Jones told The Tennessean in 2005. "I need to get time with my guitar every day."
