More Info on Jack JonesSimilar Undetermined MusicSearch Artistopia
Biography
BLP sources|date=March 2011Infobox musical artist| image= || name = Jack Jones| background = solo_singer| birth_name = John Allan Jones| birth_date = birth date and age|1938|1|14| origin = Hollywood, California , U.S.| instrument = Singing|Vocals | genre = Traditional pop music|Traditional pop , jazz , Big band music|big band | occupation = Singer, actor| years_active = 1959–present| spouse = Kim Ely (1982-present) Kathryn Simmons (1977-1982) (divorced) Gretchen Roberts (1970-1971) (divorced) Jill St. John (1967-1969) (divorced) Katie Lee Nuckols (1960-1966) (divorced)| label = Capitol Records|Capitol , Kapp Records|Kapp , RCA , MGM John Allan "Jack" Jones (born January 14, 1938) is an United States|American jazz and pop music|pop singer.cite web|title=Jack Jones's biography|first=John|last=Bush|publisher=Allmusic|url=Allmusic|class=artist|id=jack-jones-p14872/biography|pure_url=yes|accessdate=April 21, 2011 He was one of the most popular vocalists of the 1960s.
Overview
Jones was primarily a straight pop singer (even when he recorded contemporary material) whose ventures in the direction of jazz were mostly of the big band/swing variety. Jones won two Grammy Award s. He performs concerts around the world and remains popular in Las Vegas, Nevada|Las Vegas . Some of his best-known recordings are " Wives and Lovers " ( Grammy Awards of 1964|1964 Grammy Award for Best Vocal Performance, Male|Grammy Award, Best Pop Male Performance ), " The Race Is On (song)|The Race Is On ", " Lollipops and Roses (song)|Lollipops and Roses " ( Grammy Awards of 1962|1962 , Grammy Award, Best Pop Male Performance), " The Impossible Dream (song)|The Impossible Dream ", "Call Me Irresponsible", "Lady", and " The Love Boat Theme".
The early years and Capitol Records
Born John Allan Jones , the only son of actors Allan Jones (actor)|Allan Jones and Irene Hervey . Jack Jones was born in Los Angeles on the very night that his father recorded his signature song "Donkey Serenade" (a fact that once prompted talkshow host Mike Douglas to say to him: "I won't ask what your middle name is"). The young Jones attended University High School in West Los Angeles and studied drama and singing.
His first professional break was with his father, when Allan Jones was performing at the Thunderbird Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. He recorded a couple of demos for songwriter Don Raye , attracting attention from the music industry. In 1959, Jones was signed to Capitol Records and released the album This Love of Mine and a few singles. None of these records sold well, and his contract was cut short. These early singles were compiled in the budget album The Romantic Voice of Jack Jones , released in the early 1970s in the UK by the label Music For Pleasure . Citation needed|date=February 2012
The Kapp years
After being dropped by Capitol, Jones was drafted and spent some time in the US Air Force . Back to civilian life, he had more luck with his next company, Kapp Records . In August 1961 he recorded the ballad "Lollipops and Roses" (a song by Tony Velona), which became a hit in the following year.
Jones's biggest pop hit was " Wives and Lovers " by Burt Bacharach and Hal David . Today, the lyrics may seem chauvinistic to some, but this song was a kind of anthem for the urban male of the John F. Kennedy|Kennedy era, hauntingly, since it was climbing the national charts when Kennedy was assassinated. The imagery seems to come from the pages of an early 1960s Playboy Magazine , and a good-looking, smooth-sounding Jack was the perfect vocalist to deliver this classic hit, though many others, male and female, covered it as well. Singer Bobbi Martin could be considered Jones's counterpart, echoing much the same message in " For the Love of Him " more than six years later from an agreeing female perspective.
In the Kapp years, Jones recorded almost twenty albums, including Shall We Dance , This Was My Love , She Loves Me , Call Me Irresponsible , I´ve Got a Lot of Living To Do! , Bewitched , Wives and Lovers , Dear Heart , Where Love Has Gone , The Jack Jones Christmas Album , My Kind of Town , The Impossible Dream , The In Crowd , Jack Jones Sings , Lady , Our Song , etc. Young, handsome, and well-groomed, Jack Jones was an anomaly in the sixties, eschewing rock and roll trends and opting for the big band sound, lush romantic ballads and the Great American Songbook , although sometimes he recorded something more Pop music|pop , country or bossa nova oriented. One of his biggest hits, for example, was " The Race Is On (song)|The Race Is On ", by country music legend George Jones (who is not related to Jack). Besides the choice of material, Jones worked with such arrangers as Billy May , Nelson Riddle , Marty Paich , Shorty Rogers , Jack Elliott (composer)|Jack Elliott , Ralph Carmichael , Bob Florence , Don Costa and Pete King.
The RCA and MGM years
Jones moved from Kapp (in the UK, London Records ) to RCA Records in 1967. His first album in the new company was called Without Her . The following releases, If You Ever Leave Me , L.A. Break Down , and Where is Love were in roughly the same style of the Kapp records, but with a slightly more contemporary vocal styling. After A Jack Jones Christmas , he decided to more significantly revamp his musical direction and image, changing his appearance from the smooth club entertainer of the 1960s Las Vegas, Nevada|Las Vegas scene to the long-haired singer of the early seventies. A Time For Us (1970) was one of the albums which marked his transition towards a moderation|middle of the road sound. Jones started to record more contemporary material, including covers of people like Randy Newman , Harry Nilsson , Carole King , Paul Williams (songwriter)|Paul Williams , Richard Carpenter (musician)|Richard Carpenter , Gordon Lightfoot , Gilbert O'Sullivan , etc.
The album Bread Winners (1972) was a tribute to Bread (band)|Bread , with eight songs written by David Gates and two by Jimmy Griffin and Robb Royer. Two of his more acclaimed albums of that period were dedicated to two French songwriters: Jack Jones Sings (to Michel Legrand , 1971) and Write Me a Love Song, Charlie with songs by Charles Aznavour (1974).
The Full Life (1977) was produced by Jones and Bruce Johnston of the Beach Boys ; on this album, Jones recorded " Disney Girls " (Johnston's most well known song) and " God Only Knows ", a Beach Boys classic. His last LP for RCA was With One More Look At You (1977). In 1979, he moved to MGM Records , recording the album Nobody Does it Better , which featured disco music|disco track " Love Boat (song)|The Love Boat ", a theme from the The Love Boat|TV series of the same name , and his Grammy winner, "Wives and Lovers". His second (and last) MGM album, ''Don't Stop Now , featured duets with Maureen McGovern . Citation needed|date=February 2012
Recent work
Since 1980, he has recorded only a handful of albums, and now performs in various concert arenas and occasionally appears on the supper-club circuit. He has performed all over the world and has a large following in England, a place he visits almost every year. He even recorded an album there: Live at the London Palladium , that was released in 1995 by the label Emporio. Jones is also well regarded in Japan , where a lot of his old records were released on CD . Although Jones records only sporadically, his new work is always well received. In 1982 he recorded an album for Applause Records, with covers of songs by the Beatles , Billy Joel , The Eagles , etc.
Jones released I Am a Singer in 1987 for USA Records, and in 1992 he recorded The Gershwin Album for Sony Music , with songs written by George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin . In 1997 came NEW Jack Swing (Honest Entertainment), with Jones giving a big band treatment to old standards and assorted pop/rock songs. Another recent album is Jack Jones Paints a Tribute to Tony Bennett (Honest Entertainment, released in 1999), that was nominated for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance and Record of the Year. In March 2008, Jones celebrated his 70th birthday, and a half-century in show business with a concert at the McCallum Theatre ( Palm Springs ). Guests included Patti Austin , Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman . In 2010, he recorded an album focusing on the Bergmans' work called Love Makes The Changes. He also released an album featuring new renderings of some of his original hits entitled Love Ballad .
Film, television and theater
Jones made his movie debut in Juke Box Rhythm (1959), playing Riff Manton, a young singer who is involved romantically with a princess ( Jo Morrow ). He sings three songs. Jones acted in such minor films as The Comeback (film)|The Comeback and Cruise of the Gods . He had a humorous cameo in the film parody Airplane II: The Sequel (1982) as Robert Hays avoids searchlights while escaping captivity, the beams become a spotlight on Jones, performing a verse from The Love Boat theme. Citation needed|date=February 2012 The singer was a staple in the sixties and seventies TV variety shows, performing on The Ed Sullivan Show , The Andy Williams Show , The Dick Cavett Show , The Hollywood Palace , The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour , The Jerry Lewis Show , American Bandstand , This is Tom Jones , The Dean Martin Show , The Judy Garland Show , Playboy After Dark , The Jack Benny Program , The Steve Allen Show , and The Morecambe and Wise Show in Britain. He twice hosted NBC's top rated rock and roll series Hullabaloo (TV series)|Hullabaloo , and was featured in two prime-time specials, Jack Jones on the Move (1966) and The Jack Jones Special (1974). Jones provided the famous opening theme for the television series The Love Boat from 1977 through 1985, and also made several guest appearances on the show. Prior to that, he also provided the vocals to the theme song of The Sandy Duncan Show|Funny Face , The Kind of Girl She Is . When the show returned as The Sandy Duncan Show , he was replaced by a chorus of unknown men and women. He also guested in the 1960s series The Rat Patrol (season 2, ep. 8, "The Do-Re-Me Raid" , where he performed "That Tiny World" in a role as a POW being held by the Germans) , Police Woman (TV series)|Police Woman , McMillan & Wife , The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries , Match Game , and Night Court . The singer promoted the Chrysler New Yorker in the mid-1970s with the "It's the talk of the town" ad campaign. In 1990, Jones recorded Three Coins in the Fountain (song)|Three Coins in the Fountain , which was used in the film Coins in the Fountain that same year. He also appeared in the Chris Elliot Fox television show "Get a Life." In the episode, Chris' parents wanted to see Jack Jones perform, but the tickets were in his pocket, under 1,000s of pounds of stuff as Chris was trying to set a world record for piling on. In these last two decades, Jones has been active in the musical theater , acting in Guys and Dolls (musical)|Guys and Dolls , South Pacific (musical)|South Pacific and others. He went to national tour performing Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha and was acclaimed by the critics. He performed a song in a episode of "Phineas and Ferb".
Personal life
In the second half of the sixties, Jones had a well-publicized relationship with actress Jill St. John and the two were briefly married. In the early seventies, Jones married Gretchen Roberts. Next, he was linked romantically to British actress Susan George (actress)|Susan George . From 1976 to 1982, he was married to Kathy Simmons. From 1982 to 2005, he was married to British-born Kim Ely and they had a daughter, Nicole (born in 1991). The singer has another daughter, Crystal Thomas, from a former marriage to Lee Fuller. Jack Jones now lives with wife Eleonora in La Quinta , a resort city in Riverside County, California .
Singles
Year
Single
Chart positions
US
US AC
1962
"Lollipops and Roses"
66
12
1963
"Call Me Irresponsible"
75
-
"Wives and Lovers"
14
9
"Toys in the Attic"
92
-
1964
"Love with the Proper Stranger"
62
17
"The First Night of the Full Moon"
59
12
"Where Love Has Gone"
62
12
"Dear Heart"
30
6
1965
" The Race Is On (song)
15
1
"Seein' the Right Love Go Wrong"
46
9
"Travellin' On"
132
-
"Just Yesterday"
73
5
"The True Picture"
134
27
"Love Bug"
71
5
1966
"The Weekend"
123
20
" The Impossible Dream (The Quest) "
35
1
"A Day in the Life of a Fool"
62
4
1967
" Lady (Jack Jones song)
39
1
"I'm Indestructible"
81
-
"Afterthoughts"
-
19
"Now I Know"
73
3
"Our Song"
92
13
"Open for Business as Usual"
130
26
"Live for Life"
99
9
1968
"If You Ever Leave Me"
92
5
"Follow Me"
117
20
"I Really Want to Know You"
-
15
"The Way That I Live"
-
33
"L.A. Break Down (and Take Me In)"
106
21
1970
"Sweet Changes"
-
24
"I Didn't Count On Love"
-
38
1971
"Let Me Be the One"
-
18
1972
"Games Of Magic"
-
?
1974
"She Doesn't Live Here Anymore"
-
45
1975
"What I Did for Love"
-
25
1977
"With One More Look at You"
-
21
1980
" Love Boat Theme "
-
37
Discography
col-begincol-break
This Love of Mine (1959, Capitol Records|Capitol )
This Could Be The Start of Something Big (197? , Sears)
Love Makes The Changes (2010, Aspen Records, recorded at Nola Studios for jackjonesmusic.com)
col-end
References
Reflist
External links
http://www.jackjonesmusic.com/ jackjonesmusic.com
http://www.jackjones.org/ Jack Jones Official Site
http://jackjones.lolipop.jp/ Jack Jones Endorsed Site
http://www.famousinterview.ca/interviews/jack_jones.htm Interview with Jack Jones
Persondata | NAME = Jones, Jack | ALTERNATIVE NAMES = Jones, John Allan | SHORT DESCRIPTION = Singer, actor | DATE OF BIRTH = January 14, 1938 | PLACE OF BIRTH = Hollywood, California, U.S. | DATE OF DEATH = | PLACE OF DEATH =
DEFAULTSORT:Jones, Jack Category:1938 births Category:Living people Category:American crooners Category:American pop singers Category:Traditional pop music singers Category:American male singers Category:American film actors Category:American musical theatre actors Category:Grammy Award winners Category:University High School (Los Angeles, California) alumni
de:Jack Jones fr:Jack Jones (chanteur) ko:? ?? ja:????·????? (??) pl:Jack Jones
Copyright Citations
This article is licensed under the GNU License
Click here for original article: Jack Jones
