Before I Forget (admin said those who aren't interested don't need to read it.)

[JonesCarpeDiem]

A Sketch Of My Early Life

I was born a twin. I had a pretty normal upbringing for that time in America.

It was the time TV was first becoming popular and after a number of years, I witnessed the transition from black and white to color.

I sang in church. I sang in school. I became the soloist for everything they needed a soloist for. I picked up a guitar when I was 15. About a year later my twin and I formed a group with another fellow. We sang at all the Hootenanny's and were invited to and sang at the event that Reagan announced his run for governor. My dad had been the quarterback at the same high shool. I played my freshman year at his suggestion until I cracked 3 ribs and decided I'd rather play guitar.

I built and installed custom cabinets with my dad from our downstairs workshop from 10 years old until I was 15 or so.

I was a boy soprano until the summer between junior high and high school when my voice changed to low bass.

I had the lead in my high schools musicals.

Barbara Mandrell was a good friend.

I auditioned for the Young Americans on Halloween of 1966, the beginning of my senior year.

Not long after that, I was doing live television on the Hollywood Palace show.

In May of 1967, I had a choice to make between going on a Summer tour that began before my high school graduation or singing at my graduation. I chose going on the tour as my mom had invested a huge amount of time and energy getting me to rehearsals 100 miles each way 3 days a week for 6 months.

During the next two years I toured with the Young Americans.

That first tour began with a number of weeks on the same bill with Wayne Newton in a 2600 seat theater in the round and then went into the state fair circuit on the same bill with the Supremes, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, The Turtles, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Tex Ritter, etc. We were also promoting the groups movie from Columbia Pictures called The Young Americans.

Near the beginning of the tour, we had Kentucky Fried Chicken on the lawn of Colonel Sanders mansion in Atlanta with the Colonel himself and were given 5000 coupons for 3 piece meals. Baskin Robbins gave us 1500 coupons for banana splits.

Can you imagine rolling into a KFC and ordering 150 3 piece meals? We once ate KFC 17 days in a row to cut touring costs.

We also discovered they don't have 40 bananas in reserve at any single Baskin Robbins.

We had our own double decker bus and driver for the summer.

Soon after the tour began there was a problem with suitcases filling the aisle of the bus two high. You could not even stand to stretch. It became very Claustrophobic. My solution was to have everyone put their suitcases outside their hotel room door an hour before we were to leave. I packed the bus every time we traveled to the next drstination from that point on.

We did 6-8 Ed Sullivan shows in New York. The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. The Red Skelton Show. A special with Danny Thomas, the Dillards, and The Supremes. We sang with Lorne Greene at a theater in the round. We performed  Born Free at the Acadeny Awards the year it won best original song. There were so many other performances I don't recall.

After my first summer tour, the Young Americans gave about 20 of us scholarships to California Institute of The Arts. I received one on one private guitar and vocal lessons from people in the business as well as piano, music theory, and humanities courses. During this time, we were contracted to entertain at IBM's annual get togethers in Hawaii. IBM was so large we flew to Hawaii 4 or 5 weekends to perform for each of their different worldwide districts. The last time, when we were flying home, Elvis heard we were on the plane (he was returning to the mainland from his comeback special) and came back to see us. We sang with him acappela for a good hour and a half. He looked at me and told me to talk with one of his people when we landed. He wanted me to sing with him due to my low bass voice. I missed the connection when we landed because we were all scrambling for our luggage, but, I later visited with him  a number of times in his dressing room when we were playing at the same hotel in Las Vegas.

After the first summer tour, I was asked to audition for Kenny Rogers and the First Edition. I did, and, I was accepted but, they had no front money to pay for our support while we put an act together and, my family preferred I stay with the Young Americans so they weren't going to front me expenses for some unknown gig. 

The second summer tour, we went to Australia, Manila, Guam, Japan, Taipei among others. The movie won an academy award for best documentary but it was later recalled because a small town in the South had screened it before the qualifying time period.

After the Young Americans, I joined an offshoot group called the Kids Next Door. We played Vegas, Tahoe and State Fairs with people like Johnny Mathis, Englebert Humperdink, Sammy Davis Jr., Jimmy Durante, Phil Harris, etc.

After that, I auditioned for the New Christy Minstrels and a former member brought me into a group that was re-forming called the Greenwood County Singers.

She wanted to get into management.(Frankie and Johnnie was their big hit) We rehearsed 12-14 hours a day for a month and then flew to South Korea to polish the act by entertaining groups of our servicemen all over that country. Our equipment cases had been left out in the rain in the Fiji islands and all the speakers were soaking wet making all our brand new amplifiers unuseable.

I went to the marketplace in Seoul with the tour promoter and he bought one amp. We had to plug two electric guitars and an electric bass into that one small amp and I had to open up the jukeboxes at every base and hotwire our vocals into them.

We had no escort officer and had some harrowing experiences at Korean military checkpoints where no one spoke English. After one such nightmare, we were provided an escort officer who was a helicopter pilot. One of our female vocalists fell ill with an appendicitis the one time I had talked the USO into lending us amplifiers and a sound system and Jerry and I had spent the entire day setting it all up. Everyone flew back to Seoul without us.

Jerry got a mission to get us back to Seoul, just the two of us on one of those large two rotor Chinook helicopters. He let me take the stick for a couple minutes and fly the beast.

Our manager had really left us hanging trying to get back to the states. When we got back, we fired her, made our vocal arranger our manager, changed our name and began touring the US playing large supper clubs that sat around 400+.

Everyone in our group was a soloist. When we played the Plaza Hotel in New York City, The William Morris Agency showed a great interest and flew to our next gig to sign us to a contract. We got a few good gigs with them but, after months and no big break, we decided to disband. Shortly before that, I married my first wife.

Our drummer went on to become the leader of the USO, our keyboard player went on to work with Quincy Jones, Michael Jackson, and every recording artist out there at the time.

I came off the road in 1971.

After a few months living in this house, my wife got a job as the speech pathologist for a school district about 88 miles from here so we moved. I worked odd jobs (cleaned a bar, made repairs at a home for aphasic children and worked on my music career.)

I took out a loan from the musicians union and bought a halfway new 4 track reel to reel recorder similar to what the Beatles recorded their albums on that allowed you to build tracks, mix down, add more tracks, and mix down again. We were on the second floor in an apartment that had a small walk in closet. Three sides were clothes, the last was the door. I found that those clothes were great for sound deadening like you'd want for a recording studio.'Well, after my 5 hour 2 job workday I'd strip down to my underwear and record all the background instrumental tracks and vocals for popular songs of the time. Acoustic Guitar, Bass, Electric guitars with effects, banjo and vocals. I did this for 8 months, then, I got a booking agent to get me gigs as a single act. I had my 2 track mxdown recorder beside me with a pushbutton remote control. I could sing the lead vocal and play guitar against those tracks I had recorded and mixed down. I had 3 reels with 18 backing tracks each with paper tape in between each song. One reel per set. I did 45 minute sets. Paper tape makes a completely different sound as it crosses the heads when fast forwarding. I learned to listen to the number of times the paper tape crossed the heads to know which song was cued up. I could then, move from just a guitar and voice number to a song wih the backing tracks without a delay.

THERE WAS NO KAREOKE IN 1971. The idea wasn't even born yet as far as I know. It was just my idea to earn union scale and tips to pay for the loan and earn a living. I was booked at high end supper clubs in LA and Orange County.

I was also showcasing my original material in Hollywood where we later moved. One of my songs was chosen as the first song on a radio station album featuring LA songwriters with over 400 entries. I was also going to record companies and meeting people to shop my music. While singing at songwriters showcases, a producer from the Midnight Special signed 6 of my songs but was too busy with the show and didn't have time to shop them.

I was offered a job building all the desks for a private eyes office in downtown LA via an old friend and later joined in creating the worlds largest health food store in the Pacific Design Center from movie sets the owner had collected and stored for decades. There were 13 carpenters. It was like a little town with wooden sidewalks, cobblestone streets, a large fountain where two streets met. The checkout stands were train stations with tin roofs. Beautiful shops along the street with rolled metal ceilings and matching crown moulding. When the work was nearing an end, they brought in the painting crew who does Main Street in Disneyland to age everything 150 years,

I moved to Santa Monica and continued in construction, mainly home remodeling. I worked with my brother. I later got my general contractors license and did large remodels, one at a time to keep everyone happy and finish their jobs on time or early.

My brother and I worked construction and formed a band when I lived in Santa Monica. We were doing only our original material and had difficulty finding a drummer who heard things the same way and could cut the mustard.

This is one of my songs we recorded in a studio.

I remarried during this time and as my wife and I each had a place, we decided to move into new place where we could make new memories. I had a small studio under the house where I could record.  8 months into our lease, the landlord said his new mariage wasn't working and he needed the house back.

We found another place with two, two-car garages one for a workshop and another as a recording studio. Construction began taking all my time and energy.

I cut off my left thumb and my wife got pregnant during my recovery. My brother moved back South before our daughter was born.

Time Passed 

My second wife and I split after 30 years. She went back to her family's home in Michigan. I did not want to live in Michigan among other reasons. Our daughter moved to the Seattle area with her future husband. I stayed on the Westside for two more years before moving back here in 2011.

Of the years and 9 locations lived after I got off the road, only 4 of those years were tobacco free. This coming Jan 2, I'll have completed 17 years nicotine free.

Been working at it. 🙂