Jacob Jones

IMPORTANT: IF YOU STREAM THE RECORDS AT www.jacobjones.bandcamp.com INSTEAD OF MYSPACE, IT SOUNDS MUCH BETTER.
“Jacob’s brand of whiskey-fueled, hangover loomin’ country tunes (chased with rock and roll roots) makes for a raucous good time at his live show and supreme listening on his new self-released LP.” - American songwriter
The album cover for Jacob Jones’ debut album Love And War shows a color faded, worn out old photograph pasted into a rustic, early twentieth century scrapbook. The man on the front stands with guitar in hand, railroad tracks just behind him. The creased photograph is slightly blurry, perhaps taken in the early morning hours of what had just been a very long night. Those tracks behind him go somewhere. They disappear off into the distance, almost inviting you along for the journey the album is about to take you on. Love and War is the result of several such journeys Jacob Jones has taken. He’s invited you along for the ride. So the story begins.
Born in Crawfordsville, Indiana, Twenty five year old songwriter Jacob Jones became a traveler early in life. His parents moved to Louisville, Kentucky when he was 6 years old, then back to Indiana after only a couple short years. When he was 10 they finally settled in Georgia. Jones, then in his teens and inspired by the music and lives of Johnny Cash, Townes Van Zandt, Bruce Springsteen and John Prine soon found himself moving around again, this time by choice and in search of something new. After touring around with a few Georgia bands and doing some hard living in southern bars, a twenty-year-old Jones headed for New York City to start a new life. It was during his stay in New York that Jones began writing music in earnest. His subsequent friends and relationships fueled songs that would eventually end up on Love and War.
“I remember feeling the desolation of starting over once again in life, losing another love, maybe even THE love, or so i thought at the time… I was young,” says Jones of writing the album. “ I guess my hope is that people who are in the dark might hear the music call out and provide a light when the storm is bearing down on them.”
Recorded in Jones’ new home of Nashville, TN in the winter of 2009, Love and War is an intimate time capsule, portraying the events of Jones’ past several years in cinematic musical form. Title track “Love and War” starts out with just an acoustic guitar at first but soon a string quintet thrashes along in the chorus like a dust bowl scene in a John Ford film. Like Springsteen or even contemporary Ryan Adams, geography plays a big part in Jones’ narrative and scenery. Nashville’s influence on Jones’ music can be heard in the pedal steels, fiddle, banjo, dobro and upright bass that provide much of the accompaniment on the album.
Jones has hit the ground running, quite literally. He’s already recorded the follow up to Love and War to be released next year on Electric Western Records, the aptly titled “Bound For Glory”. Although not out officially, the finished track can be heard online on Jones’s website. In the meantime, he’ll be on the road once again this time touring the United States to promote “Love and War” and “Bound For Glory”. Those railroad tracks do lead somewhere. For Jones they have always led somewhere else. And for him, that just may be home.