{"id":1366,"date":"2018-09-04T00:47:12","date_gmt":"2018-09-04T00:47:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=1366"},"modified":"2018-09-04T00:49:40","modified_gmt":"2018-09-04T00:49:40","slug":"ftv-kenney-jones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=1366","title":{"rendered":"FTV: Kenney Jones"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0Here are three things I would not have normally associated with drummer Kenney Jones:<\/span><\/p>\n

the banjo, polo, or his donning an apron as a greengrocer. \u00a0The trick here is knowing exactly how these things fit into what would become a far reaching career playing the drums for some iconic bands stretching from the 1960s to his last shows with The Who in 1988. \u00a0He actually turned down the drum slot in The Who until Pete Townshend played the right card: \u201cYou\u2019ve gotta join the band. You\u2019re one of us, you\u2019re a Mod.\u201d Joining The Who seemed to be an impossible task. How does one replace Keith Moon\u2019s frenetic drumming style and over the top personality? \u00a0Jones told <\/span>Classic Rock Magazine<\/span><\/i> that when he joined, the press began the relentless \u201cIt\u2019s not like Keith\u201d nonsense so he resolved that \u201cNo one could be like Keith, I\u2019m just going to play me.\u201d \u00a0The fall 2018 release of his autobiography <\/span>Let the Good Times Roll: \u00a0My Life in Small Faces, Faces, and The Who<\/span><\/i>, almost assures that I will soon be reading another book about a drummer so this seemed a prudent time to take a look back his life and career.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Kenney Jones was born in 1948, two months apart from future pal Prince Charles. \u00a0He grew up in post War II London: \u201cWe used to play on the bomb ruins, stinging nettles coming through the bricks everywhere.\u201d \u00a0Jones credits this environment for setting off the Mod period of wildly colorful clothing that he was very much into as one of the original \u2018Mods\u2019: \u00a0\u201cBasically it was foggy London town, everything was grey\/black and everyone wore grey\/black. All the old ladies in the pie and mash shops looked like nuns. \u00a0It was very depressing seeing everybody in a drab light. So the minute you saw colour, you had to have it. You want more colour. So that\u2019s how we started to experiment and wear different things – \u00a0pink trousers, the lot.\u201d Prior to joining the colorful Mod crowd, he was more of a street punk and music was the thing that pulled him back from being just another aimless gang member.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Jones and a buddy caught skiffle artist Lonnie Donegan on TV so they resolved to start their own group. \u00a0Kenney was entranced by the banjo, but the one he had spied in a pawn shop window was sold before he could get his hands on it. \u00a0Undaunted, he borrowed a couple of drums and before he knew if he could do a proper job with a full set, he nicked the down payment from his mother and had a set delivered. \u00a0The guy making the delivery showed him a couple of things to do on the kit. As Jones remembered it, \u201cHe gave me the brushes, showed me how to hold them and said \u2018Now you have a go\u2019. \u00a0I looked at my mum and dad, looked at the brushes, looked at the drum kit, looked at this guy, just closed my eyes and I was making the same sound. Apparently the look on my face saved me. \u00a0My mum and dad said I had the biggest grin I\u2019d ever had in my life on my face, and that\u2019s when they decided to sign the HP forms.\u201d One can only wonder how this tale would have unfolded had the banjo still been hanging in the pawn shop window.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Like many aspiring drummers, Jones got hooked on the drums, learning to play by practicing every day and going out to see other drummers at work. \u00a0Meeting a drummer named Roy at a club in Stepney called The British Prince gave him one of his epiphanies.. Roy asked why he was watching him and Jones replied, \u201cI am learning to play, and I want to pick up some tips.\u201d \u00a0He was startled some weeks later when Roy announced to the club, \u201cWe\u2019ve got a guest drummer who\u2019s going to get up and play . . . his name is Kenney Jones.\u201d Somewhat aghast, Jones parked himself behind the kit: \u201c. . . these other guys were still standing up and they looked like giants. \u00a0The guitarist looked at me, went: \u2018One, two, three, four,\u2019 and I was playing, playing with someone for the first time, and it was working. It was like the umbilical chord (sic) had been cut – it was free and it was beautiful. I couldn\u2019t stop shaking afterwards. Then I met Ronnie Lane down the pub and formed a band called The Outcasts.\u201d \u00a0With the addition of guitarist\/vocalist Steve Marriott, they eventually became one of the biggest English bands of the early 1960s, The Small Faces.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Besides making Jones a household name in a pop-sensational band, Marriot can also be credited with introducing Kenney to his life as a horseman. \u00a0Marriott decided the band needed a day off from their relentless rehearsing so he booked them some time at High Beech (Riding Club) in Epping Forest. \u00a0Jones took to riding as naturally as he had to drumming and as soon as they earned enough from their first hit (<\/span>Whatcha Gonna Do About It?<\/span><\/i>) he bought his own horse. \u00a0Today, he says he has two hobbies: \u00a0\u201cDrumming – which I don\u2019t think of as my career – and riding. \u00a0One I earned money from, the other was my psychiatry.\u201d The riding lead him to polo and a personal relationship with not only Prince Charles, but other polo playing musicians like Cream\u2019s drummer Ginger Baker (\u201cGinger\u2019s rude, charismatic, hooked and can\u2019t stop, so we understand one other.\u201d), Police drummer Stewart Copeland, \u00a0and and Mike Rutherford, guitarist for Genesis.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0While Marriott\u2019s work ethic was legendary, he also had a darker side which lead to bouts of melancholy, \u00a0some spurred by his distaste for being cast as a member of a \u2018pop band\u2019 (a feeling the whole band shared, according to Jones). \u00a0Things built up until something happened during a jam on stage featuring Alexis Corner at the Alexandra Palace that caused Marriott to walk off stage in the middle of the show. \u00a0Jones recalls playing a drum solo to cover and then telling Marriott backstage, \u201cYou can\u2019t just walk off, leaving the three of us out there in limbo.\u201d but by then whatever damage had been done couldn\u2019t be fixed. \u00a0Marriott called up Peter Frampton and drummer Jerry Shirley and pitched forming a band with them and Spooky Tooth bassist Greg Ridley (Spoiler alert: I am at this juncture reading Shirley\u2019s 2011 book <\/span>The Best Seat in the House<\/span><\/i> so I am not quite done with my ever continuing series about drummers). \u00a0Once the legal details were ironed out, Marriott was now in the band that would let him shake off the \u2018pop\u2019 label he so detested. \u00a0The Small Faces, however, weren\u2019t quite ready to call it a day.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Enter Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood. \u00a0Two of the remaining Small Faces (keyboardist Ian McLagan and bassist Ronnie Lane) were set to step up and take over the vocal spot vacated by Marriott so they were less than keen about the two new members of the band. \u00a0As Jones recalled, \u201cI had to sit up most of the night trying to convince them that Rod was the difference between success and failure. And luckily I won. They didn\u2019t want another prima donna like Steve Marriott.\u201d An inter-label bargain was struck between Mercury and Warner Brothers. \u00a0Rod Stewart could make four albums with the Faces (they dropped the \u2018Small\u2019 because neither Stewart or Woods were small in stature like the other three) as long as the band also put out a live album for Mercury. Eventually, Stewart\u2019s solo work would take him one direction but when Ronnie Wood\u2019s gig with The Rolling Stones (he subbed for them when Mick Taylor left the band) became permanent, Jones and Stewart knew it was time to move on.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Jones\u2019 name may not show up in the writing credits, but he was involved in many musical moments that turned into rock staples. \u00a0A night of clubbing after a recording session with Andy Fairweather Low found them back in the studio sipping brandy and coke at three A.M. \u00a0Fairweather Low asked Jones how he was feeling: \u201cA bit wide-eyed and legless at the moment\u201d was Jones reply (which became the title of a hit record for Fairweather Low in 1975). \u00a0Jamming with Mick Jagger at Ronnie Wood\u2019s studio at yet another early morning session lead Jagger to ask Jones to repeat a bit over again leading to another inspiring bit of dialog: \u00a0Jones: \u201cIt\u2019s too late. Anyway, it\u2019s only rock\u2019n\u2019roll\u201d prompting Mick to chime in with, \u201cBut I like it\u201d. Jones recalled, \u201cAnd the penny dropped. I could see the pound signs in his eyeballs.\u201d \u00a0Does Jones regret not getting credit for these unscripted rock\u2019n\u2019roll moments? As he told <\/span>CRM<\/span><\/i>: \u00a0\u201cIt basically doesn\u2019t matter because we\u2019re all mates and that\u2019s fine. \u00a0I didn\u2019t intend to play on it either. It has happened to me a few times.\u201d \u00a0What would he have done with himself if the music career hadn\u2019t side tracked his life? \u00a0\u201cI\u2019d own a nice little greengrocer\u2019s shop down Cable Street.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0All of this brings us back to that other band that kept him at the forefront of rock after the end of the Faces. \u00a0Jones found being in The Who to be a much different thing than being in the Small Faces and The Faces\u201d \u201cIt was a nasty shock. \u00a0At my first show with The Who, at The Rainbow [in London], I looked out at the audience and went: \u2018Blokes!\u2019 I was used to seeing women.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0Then the music press started the inevitable comparisons to Keith Moon. One must give a lot of credit to Jones because the relentless scrutinizing of his playing in comparison to Moon the Loon would have been enough to shake the confidence of many a drummer. \u00a0Kenney Jones never had problems in that regard and even in the heavy partying days of The Faces, he held his own socially as well as musically. Jones take on the heavy drinking Faces is spot on: \u201cWe were still fairly young, we were at the right age to take it. \u00a0I could not do it now.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Which band did he enjoy the most? \u00a0\u201cThe Small Faces were the most creative band I\u2019ve ever been in, the Faces the most partying and fun-loving, and The Who the most exciting by the sheer nature of the power of the music, but I\u2019ve always had a hell of a lot of fun. \u00a0I mean, when I first joined The Who . . . it was nuts.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Having had his career guided by two huge names in music business management could have left a bitter taste in Jones\u2019 mouth. \u00a0Both Don Arden (\u201cWe were horrible little brats to Don Arden. We caused him so much havoc, but we accepted him like a father figure, in a sense, because we trusted him\u201d) and Andrew Oldham (\u201cIt was the second phase of the Small Faces. \u00a0By then we were better musicians, more creative, wrote better songs, and his encouragement was terrific\u201d) took a generous slice of the income pie. Jones is pragmatic about the arrangement: \u201cI don\u2019t think either of them intended to screw us, they spent a lot of money themselves, so had no money to give us.\u201d \u00a0I am of the mind that Kenney Jones still made more in the music business than he would have in the greengrocer\u2019s trade. There are few instances where I can see a greengrocer playing polo with His Royale Highness, the Prince of Wales!<\/span><\/p>\n

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Top Piece Video – Kenney Jones rehearsing\u00a0Sister Disco<\/em> with The Who in 1979