interview: WIZZ JONES

What made Jones different of course, is that he wasn’t black and born in Mississippi – he was wizz Jones: white and grew up in Croydon. But it was from his early exposure to the American black blues players – most notably – that Jones developed the Legendary Me his hallmark right hand. He has an uncanny feel for the guitar, and for country blues especially. Eric Clapton and Keith Richards cite him as an important early His playing teeters on the brink of a consummate virtuosity influence. describes him as the ‘most underrated while still managing to sound raw and authentic. It’s this guitarist ever’. He has a cult following on the Internet, and his balance that makes his playing so distinctive and virtually unique early vinyl fetches daft money on eBay. So why on earth haven’t among British guitarists. Jones more people heard of Wizz Jones? is dismissive, and puts much of it down to his busking days. ‘Yeah, there’s an authority there. e’re sitting in an fine guitarist and songwriter, out as a committed left fielder. It comes from being out there in upstairs room he’s also one of contemporary Jones’s take is typically self- the snow, playing cinema queues of a pub in ’s trailblazers. Go effacing, even on his formative and street corners, and wearing the suburbs of back to the late 50s and do a years as a musician. ‘You like to fingerpicks to make it louder. I did Birmingham. There’s a small bar little homework, and it’s Jones’s think you’re a pioneer,’ he says, it for quite a while, and it gives aWt one end, and an even smaller footprints, and not too many ‘but there’s always somebody you a certain power in getting the stage at the other. The or om others, you’ll find ta the end of before you. There was a guy in sound across.’ smells slightly stale and yeasty, the track. ‘We all used to follow London playing 12-string guitar Doubtless, busking played its and in the afternoon light the him around,’ says . called Nicky Thatcher, another part, but Jones’s explanation fails walls look long overdue for a lick ‘Him and . He’s the guy in Paris called Geno Foreman, to account for his enviable – albeit of paint. It’s typical, probably, of great granddaddy, an excellent and Chris Barber, the jazz player, qualified – reputation among the countless bread-and-butter guitarist.’ he had a lot to do with it. He the generation of guitarists that gigs that have hosted Wizz Jones Now 70, Jones’s unruly white brought the black blues players followed him. ‘He’s an excellent for the 50-odd years he’s been in hair and genial smile put him over and put them on as interval player, he’s so underrated,’ claims the business, and which for some somewhere between Doc Brown spots in the jazz clubs. There was Bert Jansch. ‘His songwriting, inexplicable reason he’s rarely and an affable, older Beethoven Lonnie Johnson, Joe Williams, his guitar playing…he should be risen above. Inexplicable, because – the sort of guy you might see the piano player Memphis Slim… a superstar…but he isn’t.’ And not only is Jones a staggeringly sitting in a pub and instantly mark there were loads of guys.’ while it’s true Jones never rose 38

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to those ranks, he does hold enough to become an alcoholic,’ the distinction of having given he says sardonically. ‘It would a leg-up to several who did. A have happened, but I never had young Eric Clapton used to watch the money.’ him playing to packed pubs It seems improbable that a and coffee bars in Soho, before mere lack of money could keep hurrying home to practise what alcoholism at bay for Jones or he’d seen. ’s in there anyone else if they were set on it, somewhere as a busking and but self-deprecation is one of his travelling companion. And Keith traits, and much of the time he’d Richards – as if to go one better – rather talk about other musicians insists that he bunked off lessons than himself. The names trip off to learn blues guitar from Jones his tongue like he’s plucked them in the toilets of Ravensbourne art at random from Soho coffee shop college. billings from the 60s: ‘Long John It’s a perverse kind of Baldry had such a fantastic blues recognition (like the silly money voice … Alexis Korner – not a his early vinyl fetches on eBay) great player, but a great passion that has brought neither wealth for the music … Davey Graham nor wider fame, yet it’s difficult was a true innovator, hugely to avoid a suspicion that Jones influential … Always admired might secretly relish his role John Martyn because he had as the William Blake of British so much front … folk. After all, he’s the man who should have had an award years was there at the beginning, ago – Ziggurat is a superb album who has lasted the longest, who … Bert Jansch? Now he is a never got destroyed by drugs genius…’ or alcohol, and whose work, in It’s almost irksome at times, proportion to its merits, is the trying to get Jones to talk about least recognised in the history himself, something he readily of the folk movement. It’s also a admits. ‘The usicm is what role that, ironically, Jones credits always inspired me – what for his remarkable endurance. excites me most is turning ‘Luckily, I was never famous people on to another musician’s

work. I probably missed my many of the early black blues true vocation. I should have players, Jones has never enjoyed been a radio DJ or made music commercial success. And for documentaries.’ much the same reason he has So we should be grateful that played the same guitar for most of Jones missed his ‘true vocation’. his career: a workhorse Epiphone Had he not, British music, and Texan that he bought second- not just folk music, would be all hand in 1967 from Selmer’s, the poorer for it. He might be Charing Cross Rd, for £75. It best known for his blues playing looks tired and disreputable these (‘I’m not a real blues player, it’s days, yet Jones can still coax a just what really got to me’), but remarkably punchy sound out his repertoire is vast and wide of it – something he attributes ranging. If it can reasonably to his AER amp. That, and a be described as folk, roots combination of an old Ashworth or acoustic (and a few other bug and a Pure Western K&K. genres besides), the chances And if that wasn’t enough, he are that Jones has it covered. mikes it as well. ‘It might be He has a gift for making a song purely psychological,’ he says, accessible, of knowing, perhaps ‘but I like to think I’m getting instinctively, how to project it. dynamics by moving closer to the His edgy, intricate take on Robin mike.’ Williamson’s valedictory ‘First So how is it to play? ‘Put it this Girl I Loved’ can stand no end way, it’s not as good as it was,’ he of listening (catch it on YouTube says, adding (somewhat heroically, and see if you don’t agree), one suspects), ‘but it’s still pretty and though he’s never been a good. I could probably play a prolific songwriter (‘I had the guitar with a wider neck better. shadow of Alan Tunbridge with In a way it inhibits my style, but me, this inexhaustible supply of at the same time, it gave birth great songs’), he’s crafted some to my style. It’s grown around exceptional work – melodic, that neck.’ Asked how he keeps deeply personal narratives that it going, Jones professes it to be tug at the emotions without ever something of a miracle. It has had, spilling into mawkishness. like its owner, a colourful, but not Yet in common with so an easy life. ‘When I first otg it,’ 39

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Jones says, ‘I had a row with my I suppose, but it’s not what we wife and slammed the boot of the were doing. We were inspired car down on it, and a hinge went by the music. We didn’t think through the back. Tony Zemaitis about performing, we just loved In The Shadows repaired it, but then I made the music. We tramped across the mistake of shaving off het the country carrying old tape sunburst finish ot make the table recorders to learn it. Any little New Soundhole Tuner a bit thinner. Very fashionable at bit of knowledge on the guitar hadow Electronics boldly successfully, Shadow Electronics the time, but a daft thing to do. was really something. You’d meet claim that their latest advise leaving the tuner in for 24 And I have this habit of whacking someone and you’d say, “You product is the world’s very hours to allow the Velcro adhesive the guitar. The whole table creaks know that bit on such and such, first soundhole tuner, and to bond with the wood. now and that’s started to come how do you do that?” And they’d atS first I was a bit curious as to why In use, the tuner – an automatic through on the PA. I suppose I’ll show you. Perhaps by today’s no one else has done this before. chromatic type – finds the have to train myself to do less of standards it’d be nothing, but in that,’ he says with a shrug. those days it was really exciting. The soundhole tuner can be pitch well without wavering I ask him if he ever considers It didn’t occur to us to do it installed in a few minutes without undecidedly. The multicoloured treating himself to a new axe, just to perform, but now that’s permanent alterations or damage lights are clear for dark-stage use, and a look of wry amusement what you do.’ He pauses. ‘But I to your acoustic guitar, and comes with the blue light indicating the crosses his face. ‘I can’t afford to,’ can still get enthusiastic.’ And with a series of Velcro strips to played note and the red and green he says. ‘I’ve never got any money. his whole demeanour changes attach the tuner to the inside of lights assisting with fine-tuning. It’s my personality – money flies suddenly, and his praise becomes the guitar. My first ealr gripe with this away from me.’ So what about almost gushing. ‘There’s a young Shadow Electronics state that you product is with the placement a manufacturer presenting him guy called Jo Woolley down in can tune your instrument more of the on/off switch, as it’s quite with a guitar? Didn’t they do that London…great voice…writes his than 1,200 times without changing difficulto t locate while playing sort of thing when a musician’s own songs…sense of humour… the included 3-volt cell battery. my acoustic guitar. Had it been by done as much for the business great stage presence. Yeah, he The tuner comes with a five-year the tuner lights I’d have been able as Jones has? He laughs. ‘Nah, I really impressed me.’ warranty. to access it far better, although I wish they would. You’ve got to I ask who was left now from the have a name and a body of work old guard. It’s probably not the Now, the obvious advantage acknowledge this would possibly behind you. It’s not enough to most sensitive of questions at the of fitting a tuner inside the guitar crowd the tuner display. be an influence. I’m just known time, and Jones hesitates. ‘Well, is the unlikely occurrence of I also wouldn’t want to switch among other musicians. After 50 there’s me and John Renbourn. forgetting it at your next live the tuner out into another years in the business, I’ve only Bert may not play again. Then performance! In addition, the acoustic guitar at a performance, just qualified for free strings from Carthy, I suppose, but he came placement is quite discreet if you an obvious advantage with a John Pearse.’ in a little later. I’m older than all feel exposed tuning at a concert headstock clamp tuner design. One might think, after half a of them.’ Jones sighs, then looks mid performance. While a novel and unique product, century, Jones would have at least up. ‘Don’t get me wrong. I’m To install you will have to loosen I’ll be sticking with my current enough of a following to get all honoured to think I’m part of the treble strings and affix the tuner for now. the work he could use, but he says that crowd, and honoured that Velcro pads behind the bracing (on Nick Gordon it’s a constant fight. ‘I’m chasing people like Clapton and Keith acoustic guitars). Once positioned it every day, but most of the time Richards came along to watch people have never heard of me. me play. I only wish it paid the You can hardly blame them, it’s a bills. Still, I’m knocked out that different generation, so it’s quite a I can still get gigs and do them. battle.’ So many of my contemporaries Jones is ambivalent about the can’t. It’s been brilliant, really. current state of British folk, and I’ve spent my whole life moving flip-flops between Eeyore-ish among all these different strata, pronouncements and a boyish rubbing shoulders with all sorts enthusiasm. ‘It’s another world of people. I’ve been all over the now, a big corporate thing,’ he place, seen all kinds of things. For says. ‘Every pub seems to have a working-class boy with no trade a parade of young girls singing or education I could never have about their love life for three done that, could I?’ chords, trying to get a record deal Noel Harvey and into the charts. It’s alright, 40

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