Jerry Bone on David Lynn Jones's Music

Mr. Jerry Bone

On bass guitar, some years back...

(Image from marksallings.com)

I mentioned in a recent post that I'd located on MySpace the bass guitarist Jerry Bone, who used to work with David Lynn Jones, and that I'd sent him an email to ask if he was involved in the gospel CD by Jones that I have a bootleg copy of.

Mr. Bone has since replied and proven to be not only a musician but also a real gentleman, and we've exchanged a few emails. Concerning the gospel CD, he informs me:

[I played] a small role but none the less I have fond memories and would very much like a copy of your CD so I can finish what I started concerning the gospel music you speak of.

I sent Mr. Bone some contact numbers that might lead him directly to the tape itself, and he replied:

I appreciate the numbers to contact about the tunes. I have a question. The CD you speak of. Is that made from a cassette? What type of tape was the CD made from? Interesting read about the meanings and perspectives of David's songs. I can tell you that Jones is a very spiritual soul and perhaps for most a little hard to understand but he is a master of his craft as most would agree . . . . My prayer is that the old Jones will rise again to give us more food for thought through his music. When we got off the road back in the 90's, we re-did a lot of the Jones music from his first CD -- or album as it were -- plus enough new material for at least 2 CDs. I feel it's some of the best yet to come. I just pray that is not been lost in the shuffle. I have the orginal DAT [i.e., Digital Audio Tape] with the gospel songs but Jones had not kept it out of weather conditions and it broke while I was attempting to mix it down for a CD. Managed to save most of the tunes and perhaps I can find someone to fix the DAT tape. I still plan to put it together and approach Jones about what he would like to do with the songs. I think people deserve to hear this masterpiece.

I replied to Mr. Bone's further query:

It had occurred to me this morning that the best thing would be for you to have the original tape that my nephew Justin . . . found when he helped Jones's wife clean out old things. I don't know for a fact that Justin still has that, but he used it to make the CDs and would probably have saved it. I believe that it was a tape on a spool rather than a cassette, but I'm not certain, but it had only gospel songs on it, nothing else, according to my nephew.

Justin, as I've mentioned in some blog post or other, is a bass guitarist for a band in Batesville, Arkansas called Gazer, and I know that he'd like to help get more of David Lynn Jones's music out there for the public to appreciate. Mr. Bone sounds hopeful about that, for he wrote:

Thanks for making the contact with me because I think this could be a seed planted for the good.

Perhaps, like a mustard seed, this one will grow into a tree great enough for the fowl of the air to rest upon and sing. The gospel CD alone would be worth the effort expended in producing it, and if the music that Jones, Bone, and the others redid from Jones's first album can be located, especially if found with the new material that would fill at least two CDs, then we all have something very special to look forward to.

Maybe it would even bring Jones out of his retirement.