Ancestor

Stone Jack Jones isn’t your usual Americana musician. He didn’t come from the suburbs, nor did he recently graduate college. Jones was born in 1948 to a family with four generations of coal miners and raised in Buffalo Creek, W.V. He once owned a strip club and was entranced by the punk scene in the '70s and ‘80s, fronting an Atlanta band called Kaos. His third album, Ancestors, features a duet with Patty Griffin (she appears on several tracks) on the ghostly country melody of “Jackson” and elsewhere features members of Lambchop and Courtney Tidwell adding musical touches that transport the music from eerie ol’-time folk to haunted nocturnal songs with psychedelic overtones that recall elements of Skip Spence, Mark Lanegan, and Chris Whitley. Jones long ago moved to Nashville, and his friendship with Roger Moutenot—who produced this record, as he's done for artists such as Yo La Tengo and Sleater-Kinney—proves to be the transformative key to songs such as “Way Gone Wrong,” “State I’m In," and “Anyone.”