The Bones of J.R. Jones & Jarrod Dickenson

The Bones of J.R. Jones

Blues/Soul 

Doors: 7pm

Tickets: $15 Advance / $18 at the door 

First Come. Limited Seating

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The Bones of J.R. Jonesis a project from American singer, guitarist, and songwriter Jonathon Linaberry. With a musical style that adeptly toes the line between folky and sorrowful lullabies to dirty, grainy, blues-influenced songs, J.R.’s voice communicates a level of intimacy and passion that carries with it a quiet sense of loss, yearning, and wanting.

Performing on stage with a kick drum, high-hat, and guitar/banjo , J.R.’s live shows are visually impressive – a powerful and dynamic display that showcases his musical and emotional range.

His songs speak of sorrow and hope, a longing for home, and, he says, “The more unsavory desires and wants in your life – those demons and devils that haunt you.”

“Jones is an artist that you don’t want to miss. He is unrelenting in his both his approach and his style. No matter what you’re going through. No matter what you’re trying to accomplish. Know you’ve got a kindred spirit in The Bones of J.R. Jones...and even in this moment right now as you read this, he’s out there somewhere, hell bent for leather.”~ Nosebleed Magazine

Jarrod Dickenson is a guitarist, singer, songwriter and producer, originally from Waco, Texas, now based in Nashville. His two albums, The Lonesome Traveler and Ready The Horses, along with his EP, Under A Texas Sky have earned him critical acclaim and a devoted audience on both sides of the Atlantic. Not one to fear an exhausting tour schedule, Dickenson has entranced crowds all over Europe and the US and shared stages with such legendary artists as Bonnie Raitt, Don McLean, The Waterboys, Jools Holland and Jimmie Vaughan. He has performed at prestigious festivals such as Glastonbury and Cambridge Folk Festival.

After a baptism of fire in the world of the major labels, Jarrod Dickenson now exists as a fiercely independent artist, a look that suits him well and allows his creativity to follow whatever path it damn well pleases. Nowhere is this attitude better encapsulated than in the bluesy rock and roll growl of his uncompromising new album BIG TALK, released worldwide February 3rd, 2023 via Hooked Records.

All proceeds go to paying the Performers and Supporting Live Music.

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A Piece of the Story

“There was no ‘a-ha’ moment,” says Jonathon Linaberry, “no life-changing revelation, no

singular flash of inspiration. It was just a fierce, steady, undeniable energy, a force of nature I

had to wrestle and wrangle with for years until I could harness it.”

It’s easy to understand, then, why Linaberry—better known as The Bones Of J.R. Jones—would

call his mesmerizing new album Slow Lightning. As its title would suggest, the collection is raw

and visceral, pulsating with an understated electrical current that flows just beneath its

seemingly placid surface. The songs are restless and unsettled here, often grappling with doubt

and desire in the face of nature and fate, and frequent collaborator Kiyoshi Matsuyama’s

production is eerily hypnotic to match, with haunting synthesizers, vintage drum machines, and

ghostly guitars fleshing out Linaberry’s already-cinematic brand of roots noir. The result is a

moody, ominous work that’s equal parts Southern Gothic and transcendentalist meditation, an

instinctual slice of piercing self-reflection that hints at everything from Bruce Springsteen and

Bon Iver to James Murphy and J.J. Cale as it searches for meaning and purpose in a world

without easy answers.

“I felt very lost at the time I was writing these songs,” Linaberry confesses. “It was a moment

of deep crisis and anxiety, but I knew the only way out was through, which meant I just had to

bring myself to the table every day and put in the work.”

Linaberry’s no stranger to putting in the work. Born and raised in central New York, he got his

start playing in hardcore and punk bands before becoming enamored with the field recordings

of Alan Lomax, who documented rural American blues, folk, and gospel musicians throughout

the 1930s and ’40s. Inspired by the unvarnished honesty of those vintage performances,

Linaberry launched The Bones of J.R. Jones in 2012 and, operating as a fully independent artist

over the course of the ensuing decade, released three critically acclaimed albums along with a

trio of similarly well received EPs; landed his songs in a slew of films and television series

including Suits, Daredevil, Longmire, and Graceland; and toured the US and Europe countless

times over as a one-man-band, playing guitar or banjo while simultaneously stomping a

modified drum kit everywhere from Telluride Blues to Savannah Stopover. Along the way,

Linaberry also shared bills with the likes of The Wallflowers, G. Love, and The Devil Makes

Three, soundtracked an Amazon commercial helmed by Oscar-winning director Taika Waititi,

and earned praise from Billboard, American Songwriter, and Under the Radar, among others.

After living in constant motion for the better part of ten years, though, Linaberry found himself

at an unexpected standstill in 2021. At the time, he and his wife had recently relocated from

Brooklyn to an old farmhouse in the Catskills, and the change of pace was both rewarding and

challenging all at once.

“It’s a pretty remote, rural area we moved to,” Linabery explains, “the kind of place where

spring is just a continuation of the cold, grey, muddy, brown of winter. I was exhausted by the

seasons, working on songs nine hours a day in the attic, and it all felt very isolated and insular.”

Where the most recent Bones of J.R. Jones release, 2021’s A Celebration, drew inspiration from

a trip into the vast, desert expanses of the American southwest, the songs that began taking

shape in upstate New York this time around were more difficult to pin down, seeming to come

and go of their own accord.

“That’s where the notion of ‘slow lightning’ was born,” Linaberry explains. “It’s about a power

you can’t control, a force that’s bigger than you and follows its own path no matter how badly

you want to mold or direct it. That’s what this record felt like, and it’s something I had to

figure out how to embrace.”

That kind of all-consuming power is palpable from the start on Slow Lightning, which begins

with the boisterous “Animals.” Gritty and insistent, the track taps into something primal and

uninhibited, learning to trust its gut and make peace with aiming high and sometimes falling

short. “Well my heart’s just trying to kill me,” Linaberry sings over roiling guitars and drums.

“It always vibrates above / With always grand notions / But it plays in the mud.” Like so much

of the album, it’s a testament to resilience, to letting go of failure and pressing on even when

things feel hopeless. The bittersweet title track explores tenacity in the face of

disenchantment, while the lo-fi “Blue Skies” insists on reaching for hope regardless of the cost,

and “The Flood” conjures up a wistful portrait of survival and loss as it builds from a dreamy

blur into a searing crescendo.

“I remember lying in bed in the dark hearing the coyotes laughing out in the field behind our

house just before they killed something,” Linaberry recalls. “It was so haunting and eerie, but

at the same time, you’re just so totally in awe of what’s happening right outside your window,

this elemental moment of life and death all wrapped up together.”

Despite the looming sense of danger that permeates the album, Slow Lightning still manages to

find moments of humor and levity. The darkly romantic “I’ll See You In Hell” revels in a love so

strong it carries on through eternal damnation; the sardonic “I Ain’t Through With You” gets

high on an addictively toxic relationship; and the relentlessly taut “Heaven Help Me” surrenders

to overwhelming infatuation, with Linaberry recalling, “Love is the kind of thing that will keep

you warm / That's what she said / As she was burning down my home.”

In the end, though, it’s perhaps the breezy “Salt Sour Sweet” that best encapsulates the spirit

of the record, with Linaberry looking back on a lifetime of love and heartbreak, dreams and

disappointment, success and failure, and ultimately recognizing that it’s the grand sum of them

all that make us who we are. “It’s the salt sour and sweet / That holds,” he sings in an airy

falsetto. Call it maturity, call it self-awareness; it’s the kind of wisdom that can only arrive on

a bolt of Slow Lightning.

Website: http://thebonesofjrjones.com

Facebook:  @TheBonesofJ.R.Jones

Instagram: @thebonesofjrjones

Youtube: @thebonesofjrjones1