The Canadian guitar slinger/singer about to appear in North Battleford is coming off quite a year.
In 2014, JW-Jones co-hosted the Maple Blues Awards in Toronto, toured the United States opening for Johnny Winter playing sold-out shows, opened for Jimmie Vaughan and wowed the Doheny Blues Festival in California.
March 1, Jones will perform at the Dekker Centre for the Performing Arts. He hasn't been to the community before.
"I’m a first-timer, but looking forward to being an honourary Battlefordian," says Jones.
He comes highly recommended. Hollywood actor Dan Aykroyd, known for his Blues Brothers persona Elwood Blues, says "this is an amazing blues band.”
Jones will have with him his touring band, Jamie Holmes on drums and Laura Greenberg on bass. He says they are "some of the best around and they will both be featured during our performance."
Jones says they are now touring in support of their 2015 JUNO and Maple Blues Award nominated CD, Belmont Boulevard, recorded in Nashville with Grammy-winning producer Tom Hambridge.
"It's our first release with Blind Pig Records, distributed by Stony Plain/Warner Music in Canada, and debuted at No. 9 on Billboard sales charts in USA," says Jones.
His last few CDs have hit No. 1 on B.B. King's Bluesville on Sirius-XM Radio, and Jones continues to win over audiences – sometimes up to 40,000 strong – across the globe with incredible live performances.
"Musically, we’re proud of the songs," says Jones, "… but even more of a reason to catch us at the Dekker Centre is to see our high-energy live show, which is full of twists and turns. I guarantee we’ll do things you’ve never seen a band do before.”
In addition to being a "red hot" musician, Jones is also entrepreneurial and community minded. This has led him to be named one of 40 under 40 to watch by the Ottawa Business Journal and Chamber of Commerce, a salute to the region’s entrepreneurs who balance business achievement, professional expertise and community involvement.
Jones says his grandfather was a huge influence on him and taught him how to save money and work hard.
"In the early years of playing music, I wanted to prove to him that I could make a living doing it, even though I wasn’t sure at the time, so I taught myself how to be my own booking agent, manager, web designer, publicist, etc. and developed the skills and grew my business from the bottom up."
He adds, "Most people don’t think of music as a business as much as they do an art, but I am 50/50 artist/business guy, and it was so wonderful to be honoured by the Ottawa Business Journal and Chamber of Commerce as one of the top 40 last year out of over 250 nominations."
Leadership in the community is also something the top 40 judges look for. Jones is actively involved in Blues in the Schools.
"This is a program run by the RBC Ottawa Bluesfest, and we’ll visit two schools per day for the first week, giving one-hour presentations about blues to the entire school," says Jones. "The second week is core-groups where we work with one class for a week to develop a show that will be presented on the Friday to the entire school by the students. The students come up with lyrics and ideas, and we build a show together. It’s an amazing experience and always a highlight of the year."
JW-Jones will appear at 8 p.m. Sunday, March 1. Tickets are $28 (plus taxes and fees) and are available from the Dekker Centre box office or online at www.dekkercentre.com.
