For the four years from 2004 to 2008, harp and guitar duo R&B Jones made regular appearances at a number of venues in the Worcester and Stourport areas as well as at the Upton Blues Festival and hosted a regular Blues Night on the third Tuesday of every month at the Cellar Bar in Foregate Street in Worcester.
I was the "R" in R&B and the "B" was Bob Jones, better known to some as "Poor Bob" who plays authentic slide guitar and writes for Blues in Britain Magazine. (It's interesting that the loot in the remake of "The Ladykillers" was donated to Bob Jones University - Bob swears that this is just a coincidence and that Bob Jones was a great black educationalist)
At the time that I hooked up with Bob, I was working for a company in Malvern and I was living in digs in Worcesterduring the week and returning home to Bracknell in Berkshire at the weekends.
I first met him at a jam night at the Marrs Bar in Pierpoint Street in Worcester where he was singing and playing the harp accompanied by the house band. A few weeks later, to my surprise, he invited me up to play the harp with him and after bumping into him at a Paul Lamb concert at Huntingdon Hall and again at the 2004 Upton Blues festival, he suggested that we should form a blues duo with him playing slide guitar and singing and me playing the harp. It proved to be very interesting for me as a harp player since Bob tends to favour Son House and Robert Johnson - neither of whom were noted for being part of a harp and guitar partnership unlike Sleepy John Estes and Hammie Nixon or Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee.
Bob always fancied himself as a promoter and towards the end of 2006, he organised the first R&B Jones Blues Night at the Cellar Bar in Foregate Street in Worcester. The success of this venture and the quality and variety of the people that turned up to play and enjoy the
I retired in November 2007 and moved back to Bracknell. This means that, although people may not have heard the last of R&B Jones, appearances will now be less frequent. Hopefully, we will be able to get something together for the Upton Blues Festival, provided it remains above water this year.
For the time being, the following sound bytes will have to do:
