Davey Jones grew up in the cradle of the blues, and it helped him develop his style. He combines blues, funk, gospel, and rock into a positive, uplifting sound. He recently released a new record called Ball Cap Blues and took some time to talk about it.
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On playing all the instruments himself – It’s a mix of things. One is just finding time and the money to get the whole band into the studio is difficult nowadays. Sometimes I record things and they’ll record it and they’ll send it to me, sometimes we do it remotely like that. But a lot of times I enjoy all of the music when I’m able to play it all to just be me, it makes it uniquely me and lets the listener understand who I am and what my music is about.
On if he had training on all instruments – I took piano lessons for a little, a couple of years as a kid. I played drums through school. Those two I guess was a little more formal than the others. My mother taught me the chords on guitar. Once you learn a couple of instruments and you understand how music works, playing the other ones is just a matter of, say a different technique. The difference between playing piano and playing organ, or once you can finger pick on the guitar going from that to banjo or something that’s not that hard of a stretch or playing bass guitar. The more you learn the easier it becomes.
On choosing diverse sounding songs for the record – There were probably I don’t know, 15 songs that I wrote while in the month that I was putting the CD together. You listen to some of ’em and you’re like, “These handful work but these are a little bit, too outside”. It would feel forced to go in there. But at the end of the day, I just write whatever’s in my head. I don’t think “This will or won’t fit”, I just listen to everything afterwards. If it doesn’t fit I say “I’ll, I’ll put that in another album later. I’ll release it as a single”. Ball Cap Blues is just my version of the blues. It’s got, some traditional roots, but like you said I like funk tracks. I love the Allman Brothers and Keb Mo’. Then, you get things like “Six Feet In The Ground”, which is a little bit more the classic rock vibe. It’s just my version of the blues.
On if he appreciated the musical culture of Mississippi growing up – When you grow up here, and I grew up here, so I can’t speak for anywhere else, but music’s everywhere. We’re playing on the back porch, there’s always a band playing, down on the corner or, in the bar. There’s always music going everywhere you go. I don’t know that I appreciated it as much as a kid. The older I got and the more I traveled around the country, the more I realized, our music is unique. We have that delta sound. We get New Orleans, we get Memphis, we get Mobile. We’ve got a lot of interesting music around here. So, I guess I was in my twenties or thirties before I realized that music is a center of life a lot of times around here.
On if those influences work into the positivity of his music – When you grow up around here, you grow up in churches listening to the gospel choirs, when you’re in New Orleans, you’re listening to the choirs and the bands sing. I’ve never really thought about it being geographic more than just something that I enjoy. I don’t enjoy negative songs. At least in my experience, the people that I hang around, the people who influenced my life were positive, upbeat people. So that certainly does translate into my music. I don’t tend to like slow depressing songs. I wanna be happy so I that I wanna write songs that are happy. Those are the songs that I enjoy listening to. I’ve never thought about it being geographic, but It very well might be. You’ve got me thinking now…I sent one of these with an organ for a song I did a little while back. I sent it to a friend of mine, he said, “It sounds like you’re walking into a church in Memphis”. I was like, “That’s exactly what I want.”
On using TikTok and YouTube – I’ve always written music and tried to get it out there. Always played something. I tried the whole pushing it on TikTok thing and you get stuck at 200 streams. Really wasn’t gaining any traction. Then one day I just, I uploaded a John Lee Hooker intro, I think is what it was. All of a sudden, I get 20,000 views and I thought to myself, “I’m going about this music thing the wrong way”. I thought, if I can help people learn to play help ’em get over those humps that we all get stuck in if I can help them do that. Then the music will take care of itself. I’m reaching people on both sides. I started putting out the videos and then all of a sudden, the music starts working as well. It all just takes care of itself. But I enjoy helping people because I had people around me that, that helped me. Little tricks and things that you pick up along the way that just make play an easier and if I can help other people do that and enjoy music in the same way that I do and play what they want. That my gift to the world.
On if internet followers have turned into album streams or ticket sales – Yes. It’s not something I pushed to begin with, and it’s not something I really push. I more like mention it. The purpose of the videos is to teach you to play guitar. If you wanna support the channel, you can stream the music. Since Ball Cap Blues came out, I’ll mention it and I do notice anytime I mention it or I use the tracks as backing tracks in the in the lessons I see a jump in the streams. They do go hand in hand. But, like I said, I’m not gonna force the guitar people to listen to my music, but those that, that want to help, support what I do, they certainly do.
On touring plans – We don’t travel around the country. At least not yet. But here in the south especially starting in the fall we don’t do a whole lot down here in the winter. We like to stay inside. I’m sure y’all have been the same way lately. But the festivals and things start kicking off in the spring and the summer and that’s when we, really get out and start playing, at least here in the south.
On future plans – Yeah, I have a band and we play out. It’s just sometimes easier on the recordings. To keep it in house. But for me. I’m always open to collaborate with people. I’m always open to new ideas, always love working with people. Whether it’s on the guitar videos or the music itself. Beause everybody’s gonna think in a different way. They’re gonna approach things in a different way. They’re gonna have a little bit different flavor. I do that, in other songs that I put out too. Ball Cap Blues, being the uniqueness of the album, I wanted to keep it in house, but a lot of times I bounce things off other musicians or they’ll play, they’ll be featured artists. I love to collab with people. I think it’s really fun and it gives a unique, flavor to the music.
On if he has physical product or just downloads – If they reach out to me (Davey Jones), I’ve got physical CDs, I’ll mail ’em to them.
