the evolution of a beautiful object from a very basic form to its more sophisticated version went like this:

1988:

im very high,and im walking along the corridor of the halls of residence of the last  institution/college ill ever set foot in,and im thinking of how to do what i do without injuring myself when i see leaning against the wall next to an open door of someones room the exact thing that im looking for.

its got a wider neck(strings are wider apart),softer strings(nylon)and a stronger and more symmetric body than a steel string acoustic.i pick it up and start to play it,dont know if it was the acoustics in the corridor or the herb i smoked but the sounds went right through me.

forgive me lord but i stole it.

1990:

after busking on the streets of london and paris for a few years with this type of object,i have now acquired a band,and i therefore need to compete in sound intensity with everyone else,it is no longer enough to use a fat steel string as a sixth,i need more volume.so i add a piezo electric pickup to the body of the object.this causes a lot of embarrassing feedback on stage but at least you can now hear the guitar as an integral functional part of my words and music,like it was when i was playing solo.

1991

i am walking down the street thinking of how to resolve this dilemma of melodic as well as percussive presence in my own music when there are other instruments,when i walk into a shop in denmark street in london and am confronted with a guitar that has been made to compete sonically.unfortunately its very heavy and not very beautiful but i buy it anyway and begin to use it.its called a Chet Atkins and it is mainly used by country and western musicians.this forms the basis of the recording of the blufunk is a fact and African Space Craft albums

2000

after African Space Craft in 1995 i sort of lost faith in being able to reproduce what i am hearing through any manmade instrument and i veer into all sorts of esoteric areas like,electric sitars,baritone guitars(fender6,danelectro),electric guitars(fender stratocaster+telecaster,fender jazzmaster,PRS,),twelve string electric guitars,twelve string steel string acoustic guitars,two string and four string guitars jonesified Chet Atkins,electric basses(warwick),acoustic basses,moroccan gembri’s(and several other gut stringed instruments),guitars that were made for me by luthiers(phillipe dubreuille et al),several different amplifiers,types of strings and effects pedals,all these made for interesting sounds,but i found i was ultimately subverting my style to fit the instrument and not the other way around like i heard it in that corridor in 1988.

nothing beats hearing percussion at the same time and as loudly as the tone and melody on the same instrument,this is my style,it is thoroughly whole and organic and the two elements are inseparable from one another(this i found out the hard way though the recording process of all my albums).it simply refuses.

2001

you may notice a pattern evolving here,i am often walking and thinking of what i want to see and i see it.in this case i was thunderstruck at the impossibility of it,but there it was in the window in all its beauty and functionality,it was an acoustic guitar(it had nylon strings and looked and sounded like one) but then again it wasnt,it was an electric guitar(it looked like one,felt like one and sounded like one)but it really wasnt,and its shape was so sexy(which is something that only the original centuries old spanish acoustic guitar shape can express)that it was perfect and i had to have it.i ran into the shop communicated to the woman intensely that its mine,she calmed me down and let me play it for several hours.i left the shop with it(i didnt steal it this time and luckily i didnt have to otherwise i wouldnt be here to write you this)this formed the basis of black orpheus and nigerian wood albums.

2009

and so….?

well the image ive reproduced here at the top of the page and the chronicle of its evolution that ive tried to describe here is to give you an idea of how forms evolve for me and how beautiful things already exist.they  needed to be materialised into this world through the active power of the imagination.this guitar that i was imagining and prematurely telling you about last year in one of my posts now exists,its called the Rugged1,only one exists at the moment of writing this post but soon there will be several in several stores in france and in other european countries.what ive done is collaborated with LAG guitars to create 4 preset sounds,that have been condensed from the eras of my evolution that i have described above,it is also very beautiful which seems to be a rarity in electro/acoustic guitars,and i dont know why.

i shall be presenting/demonstrating this to the public on the 1st april at the Musicmeese Francfort 2009 at the LAG guitars booth Hall 4 #2E56 at around 2.30pm.it is a guitar show/conference in frankfurt germany.

if you can make it ill see you there!

peace

jones