By the time he reached 55, Stone Jack Jones had spent a lifetime as a carnie, ballet dancer, lute player and hundreds of other things, trying his luck from Buffalo Creek to Charleston to Boston to New York to Fort Worth to Atlanta to Nashville. Mostly, he made music—even if it was just playing on the street or at a nearly empty open mic. Then in 2003, he met Roger Moutenot, who’d engineered albums for They Might Be Giants and Yo La Tengo. And all of a sudden, something happened. Jones’ third album, Ancestor, is out now via Western Vinyl. He will also be guest editing all week. Read our new feature on him.
Jones: this jack outlived that jack. 47 years old? yikes. so it took me a long time to start reading JK. his rep with the media seemed to focus on the too-many-drugs-etc. thing, which can get redundant even if he was one of the first. it was an article in the new yorker by louis manand that got me interested. drive, he wrote. my take on him is more personal than literary. or the person who comes through the words. he was a wanderer and seeker. the status quo was presented to him, and he wasn’t interested. what was he looking for? maybe the same thing i am. he would be completely engaged with the world, then completely withdrawn. he noticed everything around him. he celebrated everything around him. the mundane, the everyday, the status quo that he watched but didn’t enter. his prayer really moved me. he would start blessing people. people he knew. people he didn’t know. the baker. ginsberg. the bowery blues. the moon. he would go on all night. too many blessings to fall asleep. and then everything he wrote seems like a blessing to me. a river of words and music blessing this mortal coil.
