AT LAST! R&B music is making a change for the better and it's not by coincidence that GLENN JONES will be present for the evolution. After such an intensive focus on the youth-oriented market, this music is now gaining more substance. "It seems that R&B is coming back to the raw deal - real music, real singers" he notes happily. With a voice as memorable as his sincere lyrics, GLENN JONES has crafted some of R&B's most significant love songs to date. After enjoying success with chart-topping hits including "Here I Go Again", "We've Only Just Begun (The Romance Is Not Over)", "Baby Come Home", "Ive Been Searching", "Show Me" and "I Wonder Why", JONES returns to the music scene a little older, a lot wiser and with his warm, distinctive riffs in tow. Having lent a helping hand in laying the groundwork for many of today's most celebrated male vocalists, (Joe, Donell Jones, Case and Jaheim, among them), JONES releases his debut CD on Peak Records , Feels Good.
No stranger to pen and paper, JONES is also an award winning, Grammy nominated songwriter. He recently won a Stellar Award for his crafty lyrics, superior vocals and for lending his production talents to the gospel quartet, Canton Spirituals (Verity Records), garnering favorites including "Never Let Go" and "They Need to Belong". In conjunction with his writing, producing and recording schedule, JONES has spent time doing concert tours and most recently, added acting to his repertoire. Between album projects, he joined the casts of both The Devil Made Me Do It and When a Woman's Fed Up, touring across the nation for nearly two years. We performed eight shows a week and I gradually saw my skills improving, he notes. Learning to act has been great training for me as a performer. With a recording career which expands some twenty plus years, Glenn Jones continues to use his soulful voice to tantalize audiences all over the world.
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SOULTRACKS REVIEW OF FOREVER: TIMELESS R&B CLASSICS
While best known for his R&B hits of the 80s and early 90s, Glenn Jones has continued to develop even after his commercial peak, seemingly truly finding his voice with his 1998 release, It’s Time. And on Forever: Timeless R&B Classics he raises his game again. There have been more than two dozen classic soul tribute albums in the past two years (and at least a dozen too many) but few have been as consistently pleasing front-to-back as this one.
First and foremost, the song selection on Timeless is nearly perfect. Rather than relying on overrecorded Motown and Philly classics, Jones has largely mined underappreciated songs of a more recent vintage, and the result is both less contrived and more enjoyable. Such inspired selections as Peabo Bryson’s “Reaching For the Sky,” Toni Braxton’s “Another Sad Love Song” and Tony Toni Tone’s “Anniversary” are given fresh readings here, and all sound great. But the best moment of all is on the fantastic cover of Rene and Angela’s “My First Love,” with Jones dueting with wife Genobia Jeter Jones.
Producer Chris “Big Dog” Davis, who recently worked on Phil Perry’s similar Classic Love Songs, does a creditable job at the helm here, sometimes relying too much on electronics but always keeping the arrangements subdued and allowing Jones’ voice to stay in the spotlight. And Jones’ voice is simply marvelous – as confident and clear as he’s sounded in career. The result is that the tracks, ranging from the long-forgotten Tomorrow’s Promise cut “You’re Sweet, You’re Fine, You’re Everything” to the Bobby Womack hit “I Wish He Didn’t Trust Me So Much,” are given new life as distinct Glenn Jones songs.
Many of the recent classic soul tributes have come off as quickly thrown together, career-resuscitation attempts that have hurt rather than helped the artists’ reputations. But Forever: Timeless R&B Classics is an exception: a well performed, well conceived album that successfully spotlights a number of underrated songs of the past few decades as well as the man who sings them. Highly recommended.
