Album Notes

In Brief:
This vintage indie CD release features 11 tracks recorded over a 5-year period in a variety of studios and with a variety of musicians. Originally these recordings existed only in a shoe box as a collection of demo tapes. Somewhere along the line JP decided to release the collection as a disc and Vision Company Records was born. Voluntown establishes Jones as that "chameleon" of stylists. "While most artists I have worked with have a thousand things to say and only one way of saying them, [Jones has] one thing to say and a thousand different ways to say it..." --Ed Freeman, record producer (Don McLean's American Pie, Tim Hardin, Tom Rush, etc.).

Quote:
"Not since Simply Red's debut as an album been so delightfully unpredictable track to track... An epic journey through the dark and stormy night of True Soul Music. " -- Nick Shields, Sound Waves Magazine

Reviews:
At some point in your life you've been involved in this scene: boy/man picks up acoustic guitar to woo girl/woman with a soulful love song. Good News! The New Age's balls have just dropped. "What Never Was," the haunting cornerstone of this album ("Are they still called albums?") is tailor made for such occasions. The basic "I-wish0I'd-thought-of-that" tune and pared-down acoustic arrangement make it possible for suitors the world over to win hearts. And if that's not enough, it even contains the sure-fire lyric, "You were right, I was wrong." A beautiful piece of work.

However, this is definitely not an soft music. From the opening cut, the allegorical rocker, "You gotta Come to Me," to the do-or-die hopefulness of the closing "New World A-Comin'," one is reminded of Simply Red's debut "Picture Book" for the sheer unpredictability of the music on a track-to-track basis.

"Still Lonely, Still Dreamin'" jumps and jumps high. This is the stuff that, uh, "hits are made of." "Johnny Golightly" offers the first opportunity (in the album's chronology) to sit back and listen to the word, "Aim me in my future/Shoot me through my past." Yeah.

"No Lights on the Water" is the kind of song the Beach Boys would do if they lived in the East and didn't have summer all year round. David Lynch would love the title cut, "Down in Voluntown," and "333 Drunkards," for their dark portraits of a netherworld of rural American despair.

The honky-tonk piano of "333 Drunkards" recalls the party-going cynicism of Nilsson's "1941" or Dylan's "Rainy Day Women..." Bobby Z's influence pops up again on "Ruins of the Dawn," an epic journey through the dark and stormy night of True Soul Music. You have got to hear this song.

An album on Columbia in the 70's and sporadic EP releases in the 80's by Jones have traced the evolution of an artist with a lot on his mind and a commitment to finding the right way to say it. Voluntown is a work of discovery and that rarest of things in today's world of popular music: an emotional experience.
© Nick Sheilds - Sound Waves Magazine

Info/Lyrics: www.jpjones.net