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4 August 2009
Dennis Jones's Third Offers Pleasure, Pain
Blues guitar heroes are like a major hurricane that blows down everything in
their path, changing the musical landscape as surely as category 5 tropical
storms alter the terra firma. Since Stevie Ray Vaughan perished tragically in
1990, however, the winds of change have been brief squalls at best.
Until now. Dennis Jones, with his third release, Pleasure & Pain (Blue Rock
Records) has the explosive guitar power, along with his voice and songs, to make
his contemporaries quake in their boots.
Jones was born in Baltimore, Maryland. The drums were his first passion and they
still inform his relentless grooves. He started playing guitar at 13, took a few
informal lessons from a friend who taught him "House of the Rising Sun," and
was rocking out with his Marshall stack two years later in a band with older cats.
His tastes evolved in tandem with his skills as the rock of the Rolling Stones, the
Who, Bob Dylan and Santana influenced him profoundly, along with sixties guitar
Greats Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Winter and Jimmy Page. Combined with the blues
legends B.B., Albert and Freddie King and the R&B of Al Green, James Brown and
Motown, the results are a human music machine who can fry the strings of his
Strat while singing from deep in his soul.
From 1977-80 Jones was in the service and stationed in Germany where he
gained further experience with a variety of bands. In 1985 he made Los Angeles
his home and headed a Led Zeppelin-meets-Funkadelic band called Blackhead
that attracted industry attention. However, in the 90s he formed the Dennis
Jones Band and eventually made a commitment to house rocking blues.
Pleasure & Pain contains 11 blazingly intense original numbers. "Brand New Day"
does not just swing the shuffle; it kicks it all over the lot as Jones exhorts "Dance
the blues away!" "Don’t Worry About Me" adds an element of contemporary vocal
harmony, reminiscent of the Sopranos theme song, to the booty-bumping minor
funk. He engages in some winking braggadocio by singing "no beg, no way" in "I’
m Good" over the hardest pounding shuffle rhythm highlighted by his string
punishing picking.
Jones changes tack in "Kill the Pain" with a slow, raunchy boogie exposing the
futility of cocaine abuse and featuring low down country blues licks elevated to
inflammatory levels. "Blue Over You" finds him playing infectious, funky
lead/rhythm guitar, with a nod to the Voodoo Child, in a hook-laden number that
has hit radio potential. "Sunday Morning Rain" takes yet a different turn as a pop
rock ballad that would not be out of place in Nashville as Jones croons his
melancholy tale of romantic woe. The driving minor key rocker "Home Tonight"
displays an urgency that permeates the entire album.
"Try Not to Lie" rocks the blues like a certain trio from Texas as Jones addresses
a common theme with the ironic "If you try not to lie, I will try to do the same." "I
Want It Yesterday" is a nasty slice of ominous, heavy riff rock while "Him or Me"
channels Jimi in an impressive display of trio rock that rumbles and roars with
fury.
Closing the astounding set is the charging and lusty musical locomotive called
"Hot Sauce" that fittingly has Jones quoting "Third Rock from the Sun" within the
dynamic "call and response" framework.
When not writing songs for his own use, Jones dedicates his time to writing
songs for his friends and guitar heroes. Guitar Shorty in his next album coming
out on Alligator Records 2009/2010 is covering one such song, "Temporary Man".
It is risky to make predictions, but if anyone has a legitimate shot at filling the
blues guitar hero void it is Dennis Jones. He has the head, heart and hands to do
it.
DAVE RUBIN
Links: Dennis Jones website and MySpace, Blind Raccoon
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