Johnny Ray Jones
Biography Johnny Ray Jones
Johnny Ray Jones
“Front man Jones has been slugging it out Southern California’s stages since the ‘80s, when he first got seduced by the romance of the blues. “I started sneaking into shows in Redondo Beach in the late ‘70s,” Jones says. “I was kind of a loner in the area. My friends were all into hard rock then, heavy metal, but I was already tired of that. Like everybody else, I wanted to know who wrote those songs recorded by the Animals, the Doors, Led Zeppelin, bands that I grew up with. I wanted to know who McKinley Morganfield was, who Willie Dixon was. I got into John Lee Hooker after I bought a cassette of his hits; he’d get it going with just his feet and a guitar. He became a big influence. I was into the roots of it all. I realized that all these bands that made it started with the blues.
“I was 19 or 20 years old, and a guy named Butch Mudbone took me over to see Sam Taylor at Taurus Tavern in Venice. They had a blues jam every Sunday. I sat in there. I guess Sam wasn’t feeling good and took the day off, but his guitar player Coco Montoya took over that night, and guitarist James Armstrong was also there. So the first song I ever sang on stage in a bar was with those amazing guys. I started going there every Sunday, and Sam started trading me singing lessons for driving him to recording sessions and gigs. I began working at the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach and started seeing the quality touring musicians. Then I starting going to the blues after-hours clubs and recruiting different musicians and bringing them to some of the beach clubs and bars.” Jones has been on the blues road ever since. He has released two previous albums, Feet Back in the Door (2017) and Way Down South (2021); sung beside legends like Big Joe Turner, Phillip Walker, and Lee Allen; and played on bills with John Mayall, Leon Russell, Jeff Healy, Janiva Magness, Walter Trout, the Knitters, and the Blasters.”
