Greg Jones & Slant Six
For decades, Greg Jones was content as a solo Americana singer/songwriter. He traveled the back roads of Indiana and Michigan, playing songs in coffeehouses, breweries, churches, living rooms, basements, and backyards. Over the last two or three years, he began utilizing his trusty Gretsch 5120 through his Swart STR amp, writing in some new styles and taking new approaches.
In May 2020, he found out that he had won the opportunity to record a two-song EP at Sweetwater Studios. Throughout the process, Greg also found out that he would be working with Shawn Dealey, who has produced two records for Counting Crows. Wanting to expand on the sound that he had always done, Greg reached out to his brother, Brad Jones, for some help in putting together a band for the recording. Brad is an accomplished bassist with strong ties to other musicians in the Fort Wayne area. Greg brought along Dave Jacoby on lead guitar, and they headed to Fort Wayne on the evening of October 30, 2020. Brad had pulled together Zach Gibson to play Hammond B3 and Josh Clements on drums. They rehearsed for about three hours on Friday night and then headed to Sweetwater Studios on Saturday morning. Before lunch,they had recorded the tracks for “Sugga” and “Moments Like These.” Upon coming back from lunch, Greg was pleasantly surprised to see a Martin D-18 and a Telefunken U47 set up to record acoustic tracks for each song. Walking out of Sweetwater that day with two expertly recorded, mixed, and mastered tracks was the highlight of Greg’s musical adventures to date.
Artist Website: http://gregjonessongs.website2.me
About the Album
“Sugga” was written on a prompt from a longtime friend. I had put a post on Facebook that I needed some songwriting prompts. My buddy called me and said he had a line for me if I wanted to use it. He said, “Coffee’s on the table, sugar’s out the door.” It was only the second time that I wrote a song from a perspective other than my own. I had to create the backstory for this poor guy who had obviously done some things wrong in his days – what came out is the story told in the song.
“Moments Like These” is the complete other end of the spectrum and is probably the most personal song that I have ever written. About four years ago, my wife had back surgery. We were told it would be “three or four weeks ’til you’re feeling better and three or four months and you should be back to normal.” After six months, it became clear that was not the case. I had gone from doing my parts around the house and for our family to having to do everything. I now did the laundry, shopping, cooking, chauffeuring of children, etc., as well as getting up two or three times a night to help my wife. About six months after her surgery, I told her that I needed to go spend some time in my music room. I sat down and pulled out some lines that I had saved. The first line of each verse, as well as the main line of the chorus, came out of my notes. Within about 20 minutes, the song was completed. I sat and cried as the song told the story of how I had felt over the previous few months. The basic idea of the song is that, even though you may be going through difficult times and you feel knocked down and beaten up, it is in those moments that you may learn something new about yourself. It is through difficult times that we can often learn the most – and that “Fate has a fondness for moments like these…”
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Session Photos
