In the Beginning There Was Rock

As a kid Jack heard the surf anthem, Wipeout and had to play drums. "Hell no!," said his father, a professional sports fisherman, who held of several world records.

A few years later, Jack's best buddy, Mike Graves filled his room with black lights and psychedelic posters. The kids heard Led Zeppelin II for the first time. "We played that record till there was no needle left. Man, the neighbors hated us!" That was all it took, Jack had to play guitar. "Hell no!," said his father.

Jack began to mow lawns and deliver the North Dade Journal, a free newspaper that nobody wanted. He delivered it to earn money to purchase his first guitar. "I' delivered thousands of that unwanted rag all over my neighborhood, two times a week. At the end of each month, the publisher would send me door-to-door and try to pursued residents to pay for a subscription, for a newspaper nobody read and nobody wanted. I usually, got cursed, threatened and the door slammed in my face." "Quit littering my yard with that damn trash you son of a bitch!" "Occasionally, I'd get the paper thrown back at me, or chased down the block by an angry dog, to the whooping, howling and delight of the dog's owner. But, I kept going back month after month, to the same homes, hoping they would give me that dime, which I got to keep half of."

It took some time but Jack eventually saved enough money to buy his first instrument, which wasn't a guitar, or a set of drums. It was a Hohner Blues Harp, key of G. The only instrument he could afford on such meager earnings. However, it wasn't long before he was ushered into nightclubs and local pubs where he'd jam with whatever band was performing on that particular night. Once the performance was over though, Jack was ushered out the back door. "No, you can't stay and hang out. You're just a kid. Go home!"

Jack was always being told, no. But the word never fazed him. "That is the worst word ever devised. I simply despise it. It has NO value."

Jack's greatest musical influences were passed on to him by his sister. "Cindy had a job at a trendy retail store and spent her earnings on the best records she could find. She had a friend named George Mazzola. He was this gorgeous blond kid who he played a mean guitar. They listened to all the great artists, like Johnny and Edgar Winter, Wishbone Ash, Ten Years After, J. Geils Band, The Allman Brothers, Bob Dylan, Humble Pie, Leon Russell, Yes and on and on. When they weren't around, I'd sneak into her room and play her records, over and over, late into the night. That was Music 101 for me. As far as I'm concerned, I already had an MA in Contemporary Music by the time I was a twelve-years-old kid. I couldn't play guitar, or drums, but I could play J. Geils, Whammer Jammer on the harmonica, note for note."

Then There Was Southern Rock

As a teen, Jack had a musical experience that changed his life forever. Lynryd Skynryd, was on tour and performing in Tampa, Florida. Jack and his buddies, Mark Dragonet, Otto Sorenson, John Hoss and Joey Regal, pulled together a few bucks for gas and headed to Tampa in an old van that barely made the trip. However, when they arrived, they learned that the show had already sold out. "Having no tickets never phased us. We never had any money for them anyway. We snuck into any concert we wanted to see and we saw them all. Every band from Aerosmith to Frank Zappa, from Alice Cooper to Led Zeppelin."

"We called ourselves, The Lows. We were nuthin' but a bunch of poor kids that lived for the next great guitar oriented album. We snuck into any show, regardless if we wanted to see the band or not. We did it just to prove that we could get into any venue and that nobody could keep us out. We weren't exactly famous for it, but we had a lot of local notoriety. After our ceremonial group piss, crowds would gather to see how we'd 'get in this time.' We'd 'borrow' empty soda canisters from McDonalds and claim to be concession workers. We'd carry two-by-fours with a pair of half rotten construction gloves, claiming to work for the props department. We'd pool a few bucks and give it to any kid who could get names from the bands guest list. That was our favorite technique, because we'd end up backstage, meeting the bands and eating their food. Concert hall doors parted for us like the Red Sea. It was fantastic and surrealistic. Everything we tried worked. We were always successful. However, on that particular evening in Tampa, we didn't have to sneak in."

The Lows stood at the back door listening to Skynyrd's sound check. They were contemplating the best way to get into that massive fortress, when suddenly, the band stopped playing and the backstage door flew open. There strode Ronnie Van Zant in his bare feet, Artimus Pyle, Allen Collins, Gary Rossington, Leon Wilkeson and Billy Powell. They were headin' toward a parked limousine. Jack stood frozen in awe. Joey jumped in their path and stated the boys plight. Ronnie Van Zant told them to wait by the backstage door and upon their return they'd see to it that the boys got to see the show. True to his word, they let the boys watch the show from backstage and eat and eat and eat. That was not all. The band was playing in Miami, following evening. The Lows were invited to meet Skynyrd at their hotel and ride with the band into the sold out Miami Baseball Stadium in the band's limousine.

On the next evening the boys met Skynyrd at their hotel and were invited to ride with the band to the show. As the limo approached the stadium, the energetic mass rushed it. Band members rolled down the windows as throngs of mesmerized kids, reached in to touch the band. "It was really overwhelming. I remember crying, because I had never seen something so powerful in all my life. Nobody pulled at them, nobody tore at their clothing. Those kids just wanted to reach out to their favorite artists and the band was graceful about it. It was truly overwhelming."

The Lows soon found themselves backstage watching a sold out show they didn't have to sneak into. "To this day, I will never forget that feeling, the energy that flowed from that crowd and the pride I felt when the rich kids got to see us poor kids ridin' into that stadium with our most greatest Rock 'N" Roll heroes. We were the talk of the town. Even the bad guys left us alone. I got to kiss the girl of my dreams that night too."

"From then on I wanted people to love my music too, so I got serious about learning how to play the guitar. My first guitar was purchased for 35.00 USD. Johnny Byrd, smashed a window at Sunnyland Music Center, and walked off with four electric guitars. One being a black and white Epiphone, so ugly we called it The Shovel. I carried that guitar to school with me everyday and began taking private lessons.

A chartered Convair 240, carrying Lynryd Skynryd between shows from Greenville, South Carolina to LSU in Baton Rouge, Louisiana crashed near a forest in McComb, Mississippi. Drummer Artimus Pyle crawled out of the wreckage with several broken ribs and hiked through swampy woods, where he finally managed to flag down a farmer who had come to investigate. The crash killed singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, vocalist Cassie Gaines, assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick and both pilots. Rock 'N' Roll was dead.

Look Out You Rock 'N' Rollers

New age and punk ushered in a new era of music. "Many despised the genre, but it sure beat disco. One summer, barely out of my teens I got to travel to Europe with a rich girlfriend I had at the time. Her parents wouldn't allow her to go alone, so they bought me a ticket to 'escort her.' We made no plans, just jumped on a plain bound for London with a ton of money and Eurail passes. We slept in the Roman Coliseum, stumbled into a transvestite bar in Munich. We climbed the wall in Berlin and gave the finger to guards in the towers, who gave us the finger in return. But, we made sure we saw plenty of shows, especially David Bowie, Bauhaus, Killing Joke, The Meteors and the U. K. Subs. The european music scene made me realize that music influenced the entire world on many different levels. I began to realize the impact theatre had live performance. I vowed to return to school and study music and theatre for as long as I could."

Jack kept that promise. He studied music at Miami Dade Community College. However, instructors pushed jazz and classical music, scorning those who played Rock and especially those that played country music. "They loved to say; 'There are two words that don't go together, country and music.' They considered it an aberration and did all they could to make young impressionable minds feel inadequate, ridiculous and insecure about the things that drove them to seek knowledge in first place. Feeling inadequate was something I had lived with my entire life, so being scorned was nothing new to me."

"One day a musician friend of mine jokingly suggested I change my name to Stack Jones, so for a good laugh I did and kept it ever since." It was at that time Stack discovered gospel artists like Mahalia Jackson and the Sun Sessions of Elvis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison and rockin' rebels like Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran, Buddy Holly, The Collins Kids, Wanda Jackson and Janet Martin. Stack also got exposed to artists like Bela Flec and The Dixie Dregs and was blown away how these artists could blend any genre of music into an endless array of new sounds. "I had the opportunity to meet Faron Young, during that time because my buddy Mike's mom was from Tennessee and had grown up with the country legend. Here he was, this bigger than life legend, standing in the alley of our homes and shakin' my hand. He looked like a western movie star out of a Saturday matinee. He shined! I can still remember his perfect polished clothes and that large cowboy hat. I had no idea who he was at the time, but I could tell he was something special. I was in awe!"

The Chameleon

Stack traded his long hair for a pompadour and his Gibson Les Paul for a Gretsch Country Gentlemen and Telecaster Thinline. He traded his high-heeled platforms and bell-bottoms, ala New York Dolls for cowboy boots and denim. "I found great storytelling songs, like those of Johnny Cash. I fell in love with the Bee Bop guitar of Cliff Gallop and the hillbilly drivin' beats of Scotty Moore and Bill Black, but I also loved extravagant bands like Roxy Musc and Sisters Of Mercy."

Miami was known for K.C. and the Sunshine Band and The Miami Sound Machine. European developers and aspiring models came for fortune and fame. Tourists traded their winter coats for sunblock and the surf, sun and fun of it all. Travel Agents dubbed it South Beach and Marketers called it the New Riviera. And nothing would ever be the same. "To me they could call it whatever the hell they wanted to. In reality it was a city polarized in drugs and violence that was fueled by deep hatred that existed between Cuban's, black's and white's. These outsiders, newcomers if you will, forced out the elderly that had lined the coastline for decades and were dying along with the Art Deco hotels they called home." Joey went on to become a hairdresser for the Bee Gees and a photographer for magazines like Vogue and Cosmopolitan. Otto suddenly died of a physical ailment that had plagued him his entire life and the rest of The Lows faded into obscurity. But, Stack kept grinding away at learning to play any instrument he could get his hands on..

Stack formed his first band The Spinouts and later joined Miami's legendary band, Amazing Grace. Stack recorded with two time Grammy Award winning record producer Karl Richardson and was managed by Jamie Shoop, who takes credit for discovering and managing Prince. "It was OK being a small fish in a small pond, like Miami, but I decided to relocate to Los Angeles where I studied audio and video engineering at Soundmaster Recording Engineering Institute, which was owned by legendary audio engineer, Brian Ingoldsby. Stack also received a BA, in Film Production at Loyola Marymount University (honors Magna Cum Laude) and a Juris Doctorates in Law at the University of La Verne.

Project History

13 Rowdy Row, Mostly Odd Things He Doe and Stack Jones Live, Love Live, are three new albums by Stack Jones. He composed, arranged, produced, engineered and performed all instruments on these truly solo projects.

"I began these projects while attending law school. I had flown to Gainesville, Florida to begin recording tracks but, back-to-back hurricanes destroyed the entire state and my plans. I returned to southern California with no tracks and dreading the decision that I had made to attend law school. I didn't care about being an attorney. I wanted to play music, but I was determined to finish what I had started."

"I was in a dilemma. Law school was expensive and so was amassing studio gear for my projects. I couldn't afford both, so I made a tough decision. I placed my possessions in a storage facility in San Diego and lived out of my truck for the better part of three years. The truck had no camper shell, so I was exposed to the elements. If it rained it rained on me. If it was freezing, I had to deal with it. It was a tough time, both psychologically and physically, but somehow I got through it."

"I didn't want to be draw any attention to myself, so I kept a low profile. My daily routine was to wake up at 6:00 a.m., eat breakfast on the tailgate of my truck and move on before any of the shops would open. I'd head to the YMCA, where I worked out and then I'd run for a mile or two, shower and then head to the law library. I was the first person at school each day and the last to leave at night. I can't explain what it felt like to leave that warm building and exit into those cold nights. Especially, when it was raining, humid and windy. It never felt good and t was dangerous. I always wondered if I would make it through that night without being robbed or car jacked."

"Night after night I'd park my truck under an old Oak tree that had thick limbs that hung low. The tree covered my truck, so it would have been difficult to know I was there. This tree stood against a red brick wall in a parking lot behind a very old dilapidating building that was mostly vacant, but did house a few illegal alien families from Mexico. It was in an old Spanish neighborhood in East Los Angeles and I knew they would be the last people to cause me any trouble. I took great care to be "invisible." Especially, from the gangs. I will say the police never harassed me. To the contrary some would check up on me and even bring me a cup of coffee and some good conversation. I parked under that tree almost every night for the better part of three years. I'd make my bed, plug in my ipod, listen to law school audio lessons and counted the days, months and years when it would all be over."

"On weekends I'd drive to San Diego and sleep on the beach and surf. On holidays, when the school was closed, I drove North to Monterey or Yosemite National Park. I'd walk the beaches for miles, or hike Half Dome's trail. Usually, though, it was Pebble Beach. I'd memorize case law and course outline in that manner. Walking for miles and miles in solitude. When I'd take a rare break and listen to music, it was usually Jackson Browne's, These Days, James Taylor's, Walking Man, or Bob Dylan's Bootleg Collection. I considered the entire state of California my home and strangely, as time went on, I began to feel like a drifter, or a character from a John Steinbeck or Jack Kerouac novel.

"I hated it when night fell, it was always too cold and too damp and no matter how much equipment I had the extreme elements always got the best. I got snowed on a few times and winters seemed like they were never going to end, especially when it rained. Summer brought warm weather but it also brought the Santa Ana winds and the fires. I'd lie in my truck and look up at the falling ash, that looked like a soft falling snow, but when morning came my gear, my truck and my body was covered in black soot, and I smelled like a fireplace that needed a real good cleaning. But, whenever those student loans came rolling in, I'd purchase more studio equipment, place it in storage and pine for the day I could use it. Odd to have expensive equipment stowed away in brand new, unopened boxes, while I lived in that manner."

Law School

"While in law school, Jack spent two-years working for the San Bernardino County, Public Defenders Office. He won every motion he wrote to the chagrin of the seasoned DA's. Law School was grueling. It was too long and took too much time out of my life for things that mattered more, my writing and my music. However, I'm proud to be able to say I graduated and if there is one thing that experience brought me was the ability to persevere. I know that if I could make it through that rigorous nightmare, in the manner that I imposed upon myself, then there's nothing on God's green earth that I couldn't do."

"Law school finally came to an end in January of 2007. The moment I finished my last exam, I exited the building, went to my truck, took one last look at the building and headed to San Diego. I packed my studio gear and headed for Overton Beach, Nevada, where my sister had a vacation home. It was to be the place I would set up my studio and begin to record music. I didn't attend the graduation ceremony and never looked back." However, before I could complete my music project, the National Park Service sent notice to every Overton Beach homeowner that they had ninety-days to vacate the land. There would be no Just Compensation as required by the Constitution. Chaos ensued and it was time to move on. Deterred, but not destroyed, Stack packed his studio and moved to Japan, where he finished 13 Rowdy Row and Mostly Odd Things He Does.

Genres and Generalities

Stack edited the award-winning Korean Indie film, Soap Girl. He was an agent representing top-end artists at Creative Oxygen and Metafor Imaging. Stack worked as a screenwriter and project developer for Shower Productions, a Japanese film production company, partnered with Tsuburaya Productions, known for creating such classics as Godzilla and Ultraman.

In 2009, Stack signed with Indie label Cherry Street Records as an artist and music producer. "When you don't have a major label breathing down your neck you can do pretty much anything you want. And I do just that, whatever the hell I want! My music doesn't fit into one particular formula. I like to write in many genres and my influences are manifold. I perform and write country, pop, rock, easy listening, folk, world and alternative music. I like telling stories in my songs and they come from my experiences and observations in this thing we call life. If you don't like what I do, that's OK with me. To borrow a line from David Bowie from the movie, The Man Who Fell To Earth.' I didn't write it for you."

In 2010 Stack will open The Academy of Language Arts, an art and language center in Higashine, Japan.

Stack's next project is writing a screenplay and developing a movie based on Pramoedya Toer's, Bumi Manusia Quartet; This Earth Of Mankind, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Peace Prize. The books are banned in the author's home country of Indonesia, where Toer spent more than seventeen-years imprisoned for doing nothing more than putting a pen to paper."

Stack has two rules in life. Learn something neweveryday, and do something good everyday.

Obviously, the writer was correct when he wrote: "Boring is one adjective I would never use to describe Stack Jones."