Any Love for Jack Jones?

Back in the early 1990s, I think, Jack did an album for Columbia called "The Gershwin Album." It's one of those that could have been great. Some marvelous interpretations of some great songs. I wish he had a steady record deal...the new album is his first release in 12 years! And the last release, Jack Jones Paints a Tribute to Tony Bennett, is a marvel to me.

 

Jack Jones was one of a large group of popular singers in the 60s that included Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Perry Como, Andy Williams, Bing Crosby, Tony Bennett. Jack Jones didn't get the recognition as the others did. I remember him appearing on many variety shows, but never remembered any hit records during that time period, like the others.

 

I had the My Kind of Town album (which featured The Race Is On) since I was a kid in 65, I loved it all. The rest of his stuff was kind of too MOR for me as time went on, though he was an obvious talent. He kind of was one of the last of the successful crooners.

 

I'm kinda surprised that Jones is "only" 72,since wiki lists "Lollipops & Roses" as a 1961 release,almost 50 years ago. I have a sealed copy of the Christmas album I've been holding out since summer to open. I remember this was one of my dearly departed boss' favorite Christmas album(and he loved music,all kinds). Me,I really enjoy his RCA years,with some surprises to be found. "L.A. Breakdown" wipes the floor of Sinatra's "L.A. Is My Lady" as tributes to the city go(and my Sinatra to Jones albums ratio is about 30/1). Jones does a version of "Disney Girls",I think with help from writer Bruce Johnston,that is actually better than the Beach Boys(and Mama Cass' version comes in a close second). It just seems to make sense coming from a crooner with '50s overtones. And his "God Only Knows" holds up pretty well,too."The Full Life" is a comp of the RCA stuff and can be had cheap.

 

Heres a list of charting songs by Jack Jones:

Hit singles
Year Single Chart positions
US/ AC Chart

1962 "Lollipops and Roses" 12

1963 "Call Me Irresponsible" -
"Wives and Lovers" 9
"Toys in the Attic" 92 -

1964 "Love with the Proper Stranger" 17
"The First Night of the Full Moon" 12
"Where Love Has Gone" 12
"Dear Heart" 6

1965 "The Race Is On" 1
"Seein' the Right Love Go Wrong" 9
"Travellin' On" 132 -
"Just Yesterday" 5
"The True Picture" 27
"Love Bug" 5

1966 "The Weekend" 20
"The Impossible Dream (The Quest)" 1
"A Day in the Life of a Fool" 4

1967 "Lady" 1
"I'm Indestructible" -
"Afterthoughts" - 19
"Now I Know" 3
"Our Song" 13
"Open for Business as Usual" 26
"Live for Life" 9

1968 "If You Ever Leave Me" 5
"Follow Me" 20
"I Really Want to Know You" - 15
"The Way That I Live" - 33
"L.A. Break Down (and Take Me In)" 21

1970 "Sweet Changes" - 24
"I Didn't Count On Love" - 38

1971 "Let Me Be the One" - 18

1974 "She Doesn't Live Here Anymore" - 45

1975 "What I Did for Love" - 25

1977 "With One More Look at You" - 21

1980 "Love Boat Theme" - 37


There's some good music in that list.

 

My recently deceased Vocal coach-(Dini Clarke) raved about him. He put out a tribute album to Tony Bennett that is sublime-much to my surprise. Great jazz trio, and beautiful arrangements. Check out "Skylark" if you get a chance. Dini would play it to naysayers and watch their jaw drop...

 

Yes. His talent, voice and timing was really pretty evident even back when he was in his twenties.

 

During the rehearsal of one of his many appearances on The Ed Sullivan show, Ed asked Jack, "Was Allan Jones your father?", to which Jack replied, "He still is." Ed laughed and said that they'd use that on the show during their post-song chat.

That night, on live TV, Ed asked Jack, "Is your father still living?"

 

I put my favorite Jack Jones track up on YouTube recently. It's 1967's "L.A. Break Down (And Take Me In)". I remember the song getting airplay on the MOR station I listened to back then, and the arrangement (by Patrick Williams) always grabbed me.

Comments on the video tell me that the track and/or album has become somewhat hard to track down.

I liked this song long before I learned that A&M's Larry Marks did the original. There's a version of that rendition on YouTube as well.

Jack Jones:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOXu3M1gNuk

Larry Marks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHqRpiuU0vc&NR=1

Harry

 

Love "Dear Heart" and "A Day In The Life Of A Fool". "Alfie" is good. I don't like "Lollipops & Roses" by anybody in a vocal ."The Race Is On" is good but I like George Jones best. I like Jack Jones Kapp sides best. His records are still nice. Superb singer.

 

One of Jack Jones' moderate chart hits was "Our Song", which featured the melody of a song from the 1967 Sanremo Song Festival ("La Musica E Finita"), but with new English lyrics:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ9GjYAOY7Y

Jones' version was released in August 1967, but the earliest known version of the song was actually by Robert Plant:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY1piiR0fIY

 

Check out all his LPs from the 70's. My all time favourites are Harbour and Write me a love song Charlie, an album of Charles Aznovoure songs. Saw him live in Glasgow Scotland many years ago. he was a star act then and still is.

 

Yes, Jack Jones is fantastic and all but forgotten among those crooners and popular/jazz vocalists from the 1940s, 50s, and 60s who are so famous, even in 2014, they need not be mentioned.

It's a shame more people aren't gaga for him cause I'm sure we'd see some much needed QUALITY reissues of his albums come to market.

That his wonderful Christmas album remains OOP is a darn shame. I just adore it!

 

A crying shame that there is no reissues of his Kapp LP discs. And they are hard to find in my area without mistracking damage. I buy them when I can find clean copies.

 

he was great in the movie American Hustle

 

Thanks for the info, I've had a copy of Larry Marks' version since the 80s but never knew Jack did it until reading this thread today.

 

Some of this material is available from European reissue labels - Sepia has twofers of I've Got a Lot of Livin' to Do/Gift of Love and This Was My Love/Shall We Dance, Zone has recently reissued Our Song/For the In Crowd and Lady/Jack Jones Sings. The earlier Capitol material is collected on the Jasmine CD This Could Be The Start of Something (interesting listening to the early singles where Capitol was trying to mold him into more of a Pat Boone type). Jack just doesn't seem to get much respect, which is sad, because he's my favorite crooner. I'm resigned to much of the RCA material never being released digitally. A previous post mentioned L.A. Breakdown which is my favorite Jack record - also love the Legrand album as well as Write Me A Love Song, Charlie.

Silver Platters in Seattle has a pretty amazing stash of Jack vinyl at the moment (found in a storage locker, apparently according to one of the guys there). I picked up a UK copy of L.A. Breakdown and a sealed copy of the Charlie record for almost next to nothing.

 

I have a 1977 album .. Jack Jones / The Full Life (RCA label) with this track and God only Knows/ send in the clowns and Disney girls among others. One of his best albums.

 

I've had the pleasure of seeing Jack twice in recent years at the London Palladium.

here are photos from last year's gig: http://flickr.com/gp/raph_ph/7bP6E9/

he and Andy Williams are my two fave crooners and I'm fortunate to have witnessed them both sing in the flesh!

Jack's early mono efforts for Kapp are great - Bewitched and Wives & Lovers and My Kind Of Town but I have a real fondness for his 70's cover album of Bread songs Bread Winners and his amazing disco 1979 effort Nobody Does It Better.

 

Those Kapp sides aren't just mono, there's fine Stereo mixes.

 

He's in a 70s horror movie called The Comeback that's not half bad.

 

I think it's available streaming via Amazon Prime.

 

I've never heard anything by him apart from his version of "The Race is On", which is the only version I've heard of this brilliant song that does it justice.

 

I love his distinctive style of singing.

"Wives and Lovers"(Bacharach-David) is among my favourite Jack Jones' song.

 

Yeah, Jack Jones' version of "L.A. Break Down" seems to have struck a chord. The song has had around 5,000 plays on YouTube with a lot of thankful people who've searched high and low for it. I also recently acquired the really rare Larry Marks promo version in stereo and put that up on YouTube too.



Harry