Despite the fact that he’s been kicking around music since the 80s, playing everything from rock music in Atlanta to folk music in Nashville, Stone Jack Jones is likely a foreign name to most. The son of a coal miner, Jones was raised in West Virginia and denied by the Army for epilepsy before he began journeying across the country. Eventually, Jones landed in Nashville where he met and worked with Patty Griffin and Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner. Jones has worked as a carny, a ballet dancer, a professional lute player, and an escape artist. If this life story wasn’t built for folk music, no one’s was.
Stone Jack Jones will release his third solo album Ancestor on March 4th via Western Vinyl, the highly curated Austin-based label that seems to do no wrong. “Joy,” the second song to emerge from the album, is simply transcendent. Soft guitar and banjo wander along behind Jones’ vocals, which are simultaneously as coarse as gravel and as soft as honey. “Joy,” brilliant and simple, calls to mind early Tom Waits. The track builds slowly to a subtly cathartic high point and features background vocals from the legendary Patty Griffin. Most of the lineup of Lambchop also plays on the album, which was produced by Roger Moutenot (Yo La Tengo, Sleater Kinney). Stream “Joy” below along with a video for “State I’m In,” the album’s first video. We also recommend going ahead and pre-ordering Ancestor in the Western Vinyl shop.
