It would take some
time to go over all of the musicians and bands that I have either
toured, recorded or just worked with. Here are a few of the
highlights.
I started playing the guitar first and I still can strum a chord or two.
The band that I was in needed a keyboard player, so I decided to get a keyboard
and go for it. My sister bought me a small organ and from that day
forward, I started playing less guitar and playing more keyboards.
Years later, at age 22
I went to Virginia State College and studied Classical Piano.
However, that did not last so I soon decided to go on the road with some
local band. Later a few guys and I got together and started
writing songs in my home town, Petersburg, Va. We recorded in a
garage and had a good old time. We may have performed publicly
about a half dozen times. This was the beginning of me taking
writing seriously. Through the years I continued to work with a
variety of different bands . I went to North Carolina to work on
an album with "MoJo Collins" but that was short lived. While I was
there I met some good people in the recording industry. From there
I put together a group with the bass player from MoJo Collins and did a
few gigs with a group called "Yamgandy". A group out of Richmond
Va. named the Ferguson Brothers asked me to play keyboards on their
tour for their new album. I took the gig and ended up playing more
clubs and copy music. That did not last long. The drummer
and I moved on and started "The Pilots". By this time I had become
pretty serious about doing all original tunes. The problem was, it
was hard to make money as an unknown group. So, we went back to
doing originals and choice copies to make some money.
We recorded a lot
of original songs and released an EP which sold pretty well regionally. Somewhere
along the line I got tired of all of the politics. I just wanted to write
songs that I felt and not for musicians or producers.
After taking a couple
of months off, the Bass player "Doug Merritt" of The Pilots talked me in
to moving to Pensacola, Florida. From there we actually put the
band back together with some new members and recorded some more and even
continued to play for a while. It shortly became necessary to play
copy tunes again and I bailed out. I stopped writing, playing,
just about anything to do with music for a couple of years.
Writing songs for the producers and other musicians was not my idea of
what I was hearing when I wrote a song. I wanted to write what was
coming from my heart.
Years later I married my wife "Page", and
she inspired me to start writing again. So now I am able to write from the
heart like I always wanted to do. The current songs are just me writing
whatever comes to me at the time. My plans are to have some guests on some of the new
songs. I think I just needed to stop trying to please
everybody else and please myself, now I enjoy writing more than ever.
Page and I
fish quite a bit which inspires me with some great ideas while we are out on the
water . Some of the tunes such as "Don't Worry Bout It" and
"Looks Like We'll Be Cruising" are examples of that, on the water
inspiration.
I wrote "Don't Worry Bout It" for a friend
"Earl Robinson". I had so much fun writing it, I continued writing
songs and released a fishing CD called "Piece of Mind". I
have gone back to the original project "From The Heart" It should be
out soon. Having a studio in my home makes it easy to record the songs
at any time. Well, "From The Heart is almost ready for
release. Do to many factors such as "Hurricane Ivan", everything had
to be put on hold for a while. I know this one has taken a long time, but I'm near
completion. I had finished recording all of the songs and was ready
to go to master when I got in touch with Denver and he agreed to cut all of
the guitar tracks. Denver DeWitt was the original guitar player for
The Pilots and is now living in Tampa while touring and doing studio
sessions. Naturally I was real excited so I put things on hold while
Denver is cutting all of the tracks. We are almost finished and the CD
should be out by Spring of 2007. A few
of the songs I had recorded years before and decided to re-record them. A
little different from the original but it's me today.
he songs on the song page are set up in groups.
There are the songs that were on The Pilots EP, songs later
recorded in Pensacola, Florida with some new Pilot members, and current
songs. They are all short cuts, so if you would like a copy email
me, click on the purchase CD or pick them up in some of the local
stores. Make sure to specify which CD.
bsjones11@bellsouth.net