Fern Jones

Nation gospel singer/songwriter Fern Jones was created in Un Dorado, AR, in 1923. Based on Joel Selvin and Ken Shipley’s extensive liner notes within the 2005 retrospective The Glory Street, she was the girl of the wildcat essential oil driller and was raised in abject poverty, even so finding a Sears Roebuck electric guitar at age 12. Shortly she was laying about her age group to be able to play regional honky tonks, but place her musical dreams on keep after marrying short-order make Raymond Jones at only 16. When Ray became an ordained minister within the Assemblies of God Cathedral, creating a tent congregation in Americus, GA, Fern embraced the Pentecostal lifestyle with similar fervor, performing and playing electric guitar at revival conferences and composing first gospel tracks. The few toured through the entire Southern tent revival circuit, briefly settling in metropolitan areas from Atlanta to Murfreesburo, and on the way Jones produced her 1st recordings. A pal exceeded the tape to Jimmie Davis, the Grand Ole Opry celebrity and previous Louisiana governor most widely known for the 1940 blockbuster strike “YOU MIGHT BE My Sunlight,” and he quickly negotiated to get the privileges to Jones’ “I HAD BEEN There When IT JUST HAPPENED,” adding his name towards the songwriting credit. Jones’ documenting would continue to capture the hearing of a Johnny Money, who later slice his personal rendition of “I HAD BEEN There When IT JUST HAPPENED” on his 1st Sun Information LP. The achievement of “I HAD BEEN There When IT JUST HAPPENED” didn’t afford Jones the increase she anticipated, nevertheless, so when no major-label offers had been forthcoming, she and Ray documented many LPs for vanity presses over the South. Small to no paperwork is present for these albums, nevertheless, even though Glory Street liners discuss one particular effort entitled The Joneses Sing, later on reissued around the Christian Trust label and offering early variations of a few of Jones’ perhaps most obviously compositions. Finally, Mac pc Wiseman — the bluegrass great right now set up as A&R movie director of Dot Information’ nation music department — confident Jones to rent her catalog towards the label, leading to her lone Dot work, Singing a Content Song. Documented with Nashville program giants Hank “Sugarfoot” Garland on electric guitar, Floyd Cramer on piano, Joe Zinkan on bass, and Pal Harman on drums — all of them clean off a July 1958 program to get Elvis Presley — the record boasted a rockabilly-inspired energy similar to Elvis himself, additionally recalling performers from Patsy Cline to Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Jones toured the U.S. to get this exceptional record, but Dot acquired no idea where to start promoting such one cross types of gospel and rock and roll & move, and ultimately Performing a Happy Tune proved a industrial failure. Following a Might 20, 1960, functionality in Long Seaside, CA, Jones merely retired from executing, finishing her two-decade profession without fanfare. She passed away in 1996.