John Allan Jones (January 14, 1938 – October 23, 2024) was an American singer and actor. He was primarily a straight-pop singer (even when he recorded contemporary material) whose forays into jazz were mostly of the big-band/swing music variety. He won two Grammy Awards and received five additional nominations. Notably, he sang the opening theme song for the television series The Love Boat.
Jones continued to perform concerts around the world and in Las Vegas. His most popular recordings include "Lollipops and Roses", "Call Me Irresponsible", "Wives and Lovers", "The Race Is On", "A Day in the Life of a Fool", and "The Impossible Dream". He also sang the opening theme for the 1968 war film Anzio ("This World Is Yours") as well as the title song for the 1963 film Love with the Proper Stranger, which played on a radio in the film contributing to the storyline.
Musical career
1938–1960: Early years and Capitol Records
Jack Jones was born in Hollywood, California, the morning after his father, Allan, recorded his signature song "The Donkey Serenade", for RCA Victor, resulting in the younger Jones' assertion that he was "practically born in a trunk." Jack attended University High School in West Los Angeles and studied drama and singing. His mother was actress Irene Hervey.
Jack Jones' first professional break was with his father, who was performing at the Thunderbird Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Jack recorded several demos for songwriter Don Raye, attracting attention from the music industry. In 1959, he was signed to Capitol Records and released the album This Love of Mine and a few singles.
1961–1967: Years at Kapp
While performing at a San Francisco nightclub, Jack Jones was heard by Pete King, a producer and artist for Kapp Records, who quickly signed him to the label. His biggest pop hit was "Wives and Lovers" in 1963, written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David.
Kapp arranged for Jones to work with arranger Billy May for the LP Shall We Dance in 1961. Around this time, he recorded several albums like I've Got a Lot of Living to Do! and This Was My Love, but none of them reached the charts. Dear Heart was released the next year and became his best charting album, nearly reaching the top-10 on the Billboard Top LPs. His next albums Jack Jones Sings and Lady received a positive critical reception.
Jones was an anomaly in the 1960s pop scene, Besides the choice of material, he worked with arrangers and conductors like Billy May, Nelson Riddle, Marty Paich, Shorty Rogers, Jack Elliott, Ralph Carmichael, Bob Florence, and Don Costa.
His final studio album for Kapp was Our Song, released shortly after the title track reached the pop charts. The label would continue issuing Jones' material in multiple compilation albums, During the years Jones was with Kapp, he recorded nearly twenty albums for them. Two more albums from this period were dedicated to two French songwriters: Jack Jones Sings Michel Legrand (to Michel Legrand, 1971) and Write Me a Love Song, Charlie, featuring songs by Charles Aznavour (1974). this performance later resurfaced on Golden Throats 2: More Celebrity Rock Oddities. In 1979 he moved to MGM Records, recording the album Nobody Does It Better, which featured a disco version of "The Love Boat", the opening theme from The Love Boat, and his Grammy winner "Wives and Lovers". His second (and due to MGM's closure, his last) MGM album, Don't Stop Now, features duets with singer Maureen McGovern
1981–2018: Later years
After 1980 Jones recorded few albums and performed in various concert arenas and occasionally appeared on the supper-club circuit. He released the album Live at the London Palladium in 1995, recorded in London on the Emporio label. He received recognition in Japan, where many of his earlier records were released on CD. In 1982 he recorded an album for Applause Records, covering songs by the Beatles, Billy Joel, and the Eagles.
Jones released I Am a Singer in 1987 for USA Records, and in 1992 he recorded The Gershwin Album for Sony Music, with songs written by George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin. In 1997 came New Jack Swing (Honest Entertainment), with big-band treatments of old standards and assorted pop/rock songs. 1998 saw the release of Jack Jones Paints a Tribute to Tony Bennett (Honest Entertainment), which was nominated for Grammy Awards for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance and Record of the Year. Jones commenced his 80th Birthday Celebration Tour in 2018.
Film, television, and theater
Jones made his film debut in Juke Box Rhythm (1959) playing Riff Manton, a young singer who is involved romantically with a princess (Jo Morrow).
Jack Jones promoted the Chrysler New Yorker automobile in the mid-1970s with the "It's the Talk of the Town" ad campaign. On October 30, 1972, he appeared as a guest singer at the London Palladium in the United Kingdom in front of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. Between 1973 and 1978, Jones hosted The Jack Jones Show, directed by Stanley Dorfman, produced and broadcast by the British Broadcasting Corporation's BBC-2 network.
In 2013, Jones appeared as himself as the nightclub singer in the film American Hustle. In 2014, he sang several of the songs, including the theme song, for the cable TV Cartoon Network miniseries Over the Garden Wall.
Awards and nominations
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders"
|-
! Year
! Award
! Category
! Nominated work
! Result
! Ref.
|-
| 1968
| Awit Awards
| Male Recording Artist of the Year (Foreign Division)
|
|
| align="center"|
|-
| 1961
| rowspan="5"| Grammy Awards
| Best Solo Vocal Performance, Male
| "Lollipops and Roses"
|
| align="center" rowspan="5"|
|-
| rowspan="2"| 1963
| Record of the Year
| rowspan="2"| "Wives and Lovers"
|
|-
| rowspan="2"| Best Vocal Performance, Male
|
|-
| 1966
| "The Impossible Dream"
|
|-
| 1998
| Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance
| Jack Jones Paints a Tribute to Tony Bennett
|
|}
Honors
- In 1989, Jones received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
- In 2003, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Stars was dedicated to Jones.
Personal life and death
Jones was married six times. In the second half of the 1960s, he had a well-publicized relationship with actress Jill St. John and they were briefly married. In the early 1970s, Jones married Gretchen Roberts. Later, he was linked romantically to Susan George. From 1977 to 1982, he was married to Kathy Simmons. From 1982 to 2005, he was married to British-born Kim Ely and they had a daughter, Nicole (born in 1991). Jones had another daughter, Crystal Thomas, from a former marriage to Lee Fuller. He lived with wife Eleonora in Indian Wells, southeast of Palm Springs, California.
Jones died from leukemia at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, California, on October 23, 2024, at the age of 86.
Discography
The lists below shows the singer's studio albums, compilation albums and hit songs only. His full discography, singles and other releases are described in a separate article. Jones placed 17 albums on the Billboard 200. In Joel Whitburn's ranking of top album-charting artists from 1955 to 1996, he was listed at No. 249.
Albums
- This Love of Mine (Capitol, 1959)
- Shall We Dance (Kapp, 1961)
- Lollipops and Roses (Kapp, 1961)
- Gift of Love (Kapp, 1962)
- I've Got a Lot of Livin' to Do! (Kapp, 1962)
- Call Me Irresponsible (Kapp, 1963)
- She Loves Me (Kapp, 1963)
- Wives and Lovers (Kapp, 1963)
- Bewitched (Kapp, 1964)
- In Love (Capitol, 1964)
- The Jack Jones Christmas Album (Kapp, 1964)
- Where Love Has Gone (Kapp, 1964)
- Dear Heart (Kapp, 1965)
- My Kind of Town (London, 1965)
- There's Love & There's Love & There's Love (Kapp, 1965)
- Jack Jones (Mocambo, 1965)
- For the "In" Crowd (Kapp, 1965)
- Jack Jones Sings (Kapp, 1966)
- The Impossible Dream (Kapp, 1966)
- We'll Be Together Again (Sears, 1966)
- Our Song (Kapp, 1967)
- Lady (Kapp, 1967)
- Canciones Romanticas (Music Hall, 1967)
- Without Her (RCA Victor, 1967)
- Where Is Love? (RCA Victor, 1968)
- If You Ever Leave Me (RCA Victor, 1968)
- What the World Needs Now Is Love! (Kapp, 1968)
- Curtain Time (Kapp, 1968)
- L.A. Break Down (RCA Victor, 1969)
- A Jack Jones Christmas (RCA Victor, 1969)
- A Time for Us (RCA Victor 1969)
- Jack Jones Sings Michel Legrand (RCA Victor, 1971)
- Bread Winners (RCA Victor, 1972)
- A Song for You (RCA Victor, 1972)
- Jack Jones in Hollywood (MCA, 1972)
- Together (RCA Victor, 1973)
- Christmas with Jack Jones (RCA Camden, 1973)
- Harbour (RCA Victor, 1974)
- What I Did for Love (RCA Victor, 1975)
- Write Me a Love Song, Charlie (RCA Victor, 1975)
- With One More Look at You (RCA Victor, 1977)
- The Full Life (RCA Victor, 1977)
- Nobody Does It Better (MGM, 1979)
- Don't Stop Now (MGM, 1980)
- I've Been Here All the Time (Polydor, 1980)
- Jack Jones (Applause, 1982)
- Fire & Rain (President, 1985)
- I Am a Singer (USA Music, 1984)
- The Gershwin Album (Columbia, 1992)
- Chase the Rainbows (Object 1992)
- The Mood Is Love (Quicksilver, 1993)
- New Jack Swing (Linn, 1997)
- White Christmas (MCA, 1998)
- Jack Jones Paints a Tribute to Tony Bennett (Honest, 1998)
- The Wind Beneath My Wings (Castle Pulse, 2002)
- I Never Had It So Good (Country House, 2009)
- Love Makes the Changes – The Lyrics of Alan and Marilyn Bergman (Aspen Records, 2010)
- Love Ballad featuring Jack Jones Greatest Hits 2.0 (Aspen Records, 2010)
- American Hustle (Sony Legacy, 2010)
- Seriously Frank - Celebrating the 100th Birthday of Frank Sinatra (Aspen Records, 2015)
- Every Other Day I Have the Blues (Cavalry Productions, 2021)
- ArtWork with Joey DeFrancesco (Cavalry Productions, 2023)
Hit songs
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|-
! rowspan="2"| Year
! width="400" rowspan="2"| Single
! colspan="3"|Chart positions
|- style="font-size:smaller;"
! width="40"| US<br/>
! width="40"| CB<br/>
! width="40"| US AC<br/>
|-
| rowspan="3"| 1962
| align="left"| "Lollipops and Roses"
| 66
| 42
| 6
|-
| align="left"| "Gift of Love"
| -
| 108
| -
|-
| align="left"| "Poetry"
| -
| 110
| -
|-
| rowspan="3"| 1963
| align="left"| "Call Me Irresponsible"
| 75
| 62
| -
|-
| align="left"| "Wives and Lovers"
| 14
| 12
| 9
|-
| align="left"| "Toys in the Attic"
| 92
| 115
| -
|-
| rowspan="4"| 1964
| align="left"| "Love with the Proper Stranger"
| 62
| 59
| 17
|-
| align="left"| "The First Night of the Full Moon"
| 59
| 62
| 12
|-
| align="left"| "Where Love Has Gone"
| 62
| 69
| 12
|-
| align="left"| "Dear Heart"
| 30
| 15
| 6
|-
| rowspan="6"| 1965
| align="left"| "The Race Is On"
| 15
| 12
| 1
|-
| align="left"| "Seein' the Right Love Go Wrong"
| 46
| 41
| 9
|-
| align="left"| "Travellin' On"
| 132
| -
| -
|-
| align="left"| "Just Yesterday"
| 73
| 83
| 5
|-
| align="left"| "The True Picture"
| 134
| 109
| 27
|-
| align="left"| "Love Bug"
| 71
| 56
| 5
|-
| rowspan="3"| 1966
| align="left"| "The Weekend"
| 123
| 100
| 20
|-
| align="left"| "The Impossible Dream (The Quest)"
| 35
| 32
| 1
|-
| align="left"| "A Day in the Life of a Fool"
| 62
| 55
| 4
|-
| rowspan="8"| 1967
| align="left"| "Lady"
| 39
| 34
| 1
|-
| align="left"| "I'm Indestructible"
| 81
| 84
| -
|-
| align="left"| "Afterthoughts"
| -
| -
| 19
|-
| align="left"| "Now I Know"
| 73
| 74
| 3
|-
| align="left"| "Our Song"
| 92
| 76
| 13
|-
| align="left"| "Open for Business as Usual"
| 130
| 104
| 26
|-
| align="left"| "Live for Life"
| 99
| -
| 9
|-
| align="left"| "Oh How Much I Love You"
| -
| 129
| -
|-
| rowspan="6"| 1968
| align="left"| "If You Ever Leave Me"
| 92
| -
| 5
|-
| align="left"| "The Gypsies, the Jugglers and the Clowns"
| -
| 134
| -
|-
| align="left"| "Follow Me"
| 117
| -
| 20
|-
| align="left"| "I Really Want to Know You"
| -
| -
| 15
|-
| align="left"| "The Way That I Live"
| -
| -
| 33
|-
| align="left"| "L.A. Break Down (and Take Me In)"
| 106
| -
| 21
|-
| rowspan="2"| 1970
| align="left"| "Sweet Changes"
| -
| -
| 24
|-
| align="left"| "I Didn't Count on Love"
| -
| -
| 38
|-
| 1971
| align="left"| "Let Me Be the One"
| -
| -
| 18
|-
| 1974
| align="left"| "She Doesn't Live Here Anymore"
| -
| -
| 45
|-
| 1975
| align="left"| "What I Did for Love"
| -
| -
| 25
|-
| 1977
| align="left"| "With One More Look at You"
| -
| -
| 21
|-
| 1980
| align="left"| "Love Boat Theme"
| -
| -
| 37
|}
References
External links
- Jack Jones endorsed website
- Interview with Jones
- Jack Jones Interview at NAMM Oral History Collection (1994)