Gordon & Brian
(Brothers)
Gordon & Brian
(Brothers)
GORDON &
BRIAN JONES
My brother is six years older than me and at the time, was obsessed with Bob Dylan. It was around this time that we started playing and singing together. He was always on at me to learn Bob Dylan, but I wasn’t really into it. I relented and we became a duo. My Dad used to take us around all the folk clubs of the time. I can remember, we’d go to Pete McGovern’s Club in Liverpool and he christened us ‘The Lads’. So that’s who we were. We were that and we sang and played together for quite, quite some time. Until my brother went off to art college in Edinburgh and went on to have his own folk career. I was back to singing on my own.
GORDON &
BRIAN JONES
My brother is six years older than me and at the time, was obsessed with Bob Dylan. It was around this time that we started playing and singing together. He was always on at me to learn Bob Dylan, but I wasn’t really into it. I relented and we became a duo. My Dad used to take us around all the folk clubs of the time. I can remember, we’d go to Pete McGovern’s Club in Liverpool and he christened us ‘The Lads’. So that’s who we were. We were that and we sang and played together for quite, quite some time. Until my brother went off to art college in Edinburgh and went on to have his own folk career. I was back to singing on my own.
GORDON &
& BRIAN JONES
Gordon said “I first met Brian in September of 1953 – he was a bit bigger than I expected, quite funny and noisier too, and so things have continued!
We spent our early years in a tiny 2 bedroom terrace next to Birkenhead Park where Dad tried to school us in the important things in life – mostly cricket practice using the tree just inside the front gate of the park as a wicket. Music however always played a part in our lives, mum and both of our grandmothers played piano and all family parties were a whole evening of singing (except when Uncle Bill decided it was time for drama with his unique version of “There’s a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu, There’s a little marble cross below the town; There’s a broken-hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carew, And the Yellow God forever gazes down.”)
THEstart OF THE GORDON & BRIAN JONES BAND
I struggled to find a way into playing an instrument, hated recorder lessons at school and went for some piano lessons but didn’t persevere. Meanwhile that noisy and funny little brother began to pick up instruments and just play them, he took some guitar lessons but as he simply learnt all the pieces he was taught by ear right away and the teacher thought he was reading the music that didn’t really last. He was singing and playing and entertaining everyone and his guitar was not the best so we all set off to Liverpool to Frank Hessy’s shop to look for a better instrument for Brian.
It became a thing, the kids would come in and enjoy singing the old songs with me. I was preparing for a gig and asked if they wanted to come with me. That was the start of the Jones Family Band.
Andrew (son) is a multi-instrumentalist, very much like myself, and he’s a very, very talented young man and can just literally jam in with anything or anybody. On stage, he’s played guitar, mandolin, bouzouki, stompbox. He actually plays bass as well on stage. And he is also a very good drummer, but never did that on stage and also can sing harmonies just like his dad. And we always fight over the bass line because my dad was in the Welsh Guards male voice choir post-war and he was always in the bass line. This is why we love singing unaccompanied songs, the bass line is the most fun to do.
