(Edwardsville, IL - March. 12, 2010) – A tribute show and jam session will honor the memory of Joseph “Jody” Jones of Wood River, who died Dec. 17 after 45 years of playing bass and singing in bands across the world.
The show is slated for 8:30 p.m. Friday, March 26 at Edwardsville Moose Lodge 1561, 7371 Marine Road (Illinois 143) in Edwardsville. It will feature two sets by the Quarter Draw Band, in which Jones played for the last four years, and some special guests. A third-set jam session is expected to feature some of the musicians who played with or knew Jones over the years.
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Victor Kreuiter of Glen Carbon played with Jones in his first band (the Jagged Edge, which played the old Collinsville Ballroom in the ‘60s), and his last two (the Impalas and the Quarter Draw Band).
“Jody was one of the nicest guys I ever met – he was an all-around stand-up guy,” Kreuiter said. “He was very smart. A very generous person, and a great listener. I knew him as a great friend and as a great player and I still talk to him. I hope he’s still listening.”
After seeing the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, Jones talked his parents into buying him a six string acoustic guitar, which he promptly modified into a four-string bass. The first song he learned to play was Bill Doggett’s 1956 classic “Honky Tonk.”
Jones played in numerous bands over the years – country bands, blues bands, hard rock bands, classic rock bands, horn bands, even a grunge band. He played in a country band in England, a lounge band in Colorado, blues and pickup bands in Florida, and what may have been one of the only hard rock bands in the Persian Gulf in the ‘70s.
A graduate of Roxana High School, Jones served and was wounded in Vietnam. He later worked for Bell Helicopter and as a professor for Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla. After returning to Wood River in 1997, he worked for Trans States Airlines as a training instructor. Jones was 61 when he died of pancreatic cancer on Dec. 17.
Photos of Jones are available for publication; contact Marty Richter at 618-401-0844 or richterm62@live.com
More information on Quarter Draw Band – including audio clips and photos is available at www.myspace.com/quarterdraw.
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