Paul "Wine" Jones

All Music Guide:

Like Big Jack Johnson, Sam Carr and his other labelmates at Fat Possum/Capricorn, guitarist, singer and songwriter Paul "Wine" Jones grew up with blues all around him. He learned to play guitar at his father's feet at age four, taking his earliest inspiration from his father's playing. Jones' brother, Casey, is the in-demand Chicago blues drummer who's backed Albert Collins, Koko Taylor and dozens of others. Jones played music as an avocation for many years, working farming jobs until 1971, when he became a professional welder in Belzoni, Mississippi. He's been based in Belzoni ever since.

In 1995 and 1996, as part of Fat Possum's Mississippi Juke Joint Caravan, he had the opportunity to perform for the first time outside of Mississippi. His 1995 debut for the Fat Possum/Capricorn label, Mule, is deeply rooted in the rural juke joint tradition of the Delta, and his style is totally original, a combination of synchronized guitar and vocal phrasings and electric country blues. He's joined on the album by drummer Sam Carr and guitarist Big Jack Johnson. Mule was produced by blues scholar/impresario Robert Palmer, author of the book Deep Blues. Pucker Up, Buttercup followed in 1999.

Wikipedia:

Paul "Wine" Jones (July 1, 1946 – October 9, 2005) was an American contemporary blues guitarist and singer.

One commentator noted that Jones, along with R. L. Burnside, Big Jack Johnson, Roosevelt "Booba" Barnes and James "Super Chikan" Johnson, were "present-day exponents of an edgier, electrified version of the raw, uncut Delta blues sound."

Biography

Jones was born in Flora, Mississippi, and learned to play guitar by the age of four. In his teens he played at house parties, and later worked with James "Son" Thomas and harmonica player Willie Foster. However, Jones played music mainly as a pastime, while working on farms up to 1971, when he became a welder in Belzoni, Mississippi.

In 1995 and 1996, Jones performed outside of Mississippi, when he was a member of Fat Possum's 'Mississippi Juke Joint Caravan'. His 1995 debut album, Mule, was produced by the music critic Robert Palmer. On the album he was accompanied by drummer Sam Carr, and guitarist Big Jack Johnson. Fat Possum (an independent record label in Oxford, Mississippi), as well as managing the latter careers of Junior Kimbrough and R. L. Burnside, gave opportunity to a number of amateurs, mostly from rural Mississippi, who had seldom or never recorded before. Some, such as T-Model Ford and Asie Payton, moved on to higher billing, but others such as Jones, were left on the sidelines.

Jones died of cancer, at the age of 59, in Jackson, Mississippi, in October 2005.