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Dr Jones
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Dr Jones is a rock/blues guitarist and vocalist. He has been creating his own music and sound for over thirty years. His self-formed style is reminiscent of Johnny Winter, Gary Moore, David Gilmour and Rory Gallagher. Biography Dr Jones was born Ralph Jones, on the 9th of April, 1963 in Basle, Switzerland. According to his mother, he started playing the guitar when he was three years old. By the time Ralph was nine, he was jamming with the likes of Memphis Slim at the Atlantis in Basle, Switzerland. Over the next few years he jammed with other names such as The Dubliners, Chris Barber and Alexis Corner. At the age of fifteen, Ralph started his first own band called Cats Combo. One year later they recorded and released an album and a single. The band went on tour in Europe and Japan, supporting the Stray Cats through some parts of their European tour. At seventeen, a band called Crazy Cats from the south of Switzerland asked Ralph to join them, which he did. Ralph moved down south and turned a nice rockabilly band in to a nasty and wild Punkabilly gang! After a year Ralph left them and moved to France where the band Fill Rouge, had asked him to join them. They recorded and released a 12" single with four tracks and toured France. At nineteen Ralph went to Barcelona for two weeks but stayed on there for two years, teaming up with various bands and touring throughout Spain, honing his guitar skills far beyond his peers. Ralph moved to London at twenty one. He started his second band Black Sun, later renamed The Mavericks, with Danny Fury (The Lords of the New Church, Rogue Male, Vain) on drums and two guys from California playing rhythm guitar and bass. The band was well received and played many gigs the largest being at the Electric Ballroom in Camden. Drug problems with the two Californians caused the band to split after only a year. Ralph received offers from major label acts The Cult and Flesh for Lulu, who asked him to join their bands. He turned both these down in order to retain his own direction in song writing and style. He also turned down an offer to give guitar "lessons" to Neal X, the then lead guitarist of Sigue Sigue Sputnik. After the demise of the Mavericks, Ralph got together with Pete Waddleton (Play Dead) and a French drummer (JP). Ralph and Pete wrote several songs together but never played a live gig together even though Alan Edwards (David Bowie, Paul McCartney) was interested in promoting the band at the time. Ralph then formed a band together with Mark Sanderson (Red Lipstick, The Bollock Brothers, Then Jerico) called "Head In Trouble", writing and recording numerous songs but again never performing live. 1989 and Ralph recorded, engineered and produced all four songs for Kill City Dragons 12" EP entitled "Let 'em eat cake!" featuring Dave Tregunna (Sham 69, The Lords of the New Church, Cherry Bomz), Steve Von Saint (Angels In Vain, The Endorfiends) and Danny Fury. These tracks were released again on Kill City Dragons self titled album. In 1992, Phil Manzanera (Roxy Music) invited Ralph to use his countryside studio to record some of his own songs. Ralph recorded the songs "Don't Come Back", "Angel Eyes" and "Sister Corinne", playing every instrument, doing the engineering, mixing and programming, as well as the vocal and backing vocal tracks himself. After ten years in London, Ralph had to return to Switzerland because of army commitments. Back in Switzerland, Ralph played with a few bands but concentrated on writing and recording his own songs. In the summer of 2001 Ralph went on a solo European club tour through Switzerland, Portugal, France, Spain and Italy performing his own songs "unplugged". For the next two years he sank himself into the digital world, learning computing skills and attending the SAE Institute audio engineering school in Zurich, Switzerland. In 2003, Danny Fury formed Wild At Heart and asked Ralph to record, engineer and produce for his new bands first album. After throwing the bass player out of the studio, Ralph flew in Dave Tregunna (who later joined the band) to record the bass lines for the tracks. Ralph ended up becoming part of the band by default, playing all the guitars and keyboards, doing backing vocals, writing the piano parts and orchestration for a full sixty piece orchestra. In early 2005, Ralph started the charity organisation Wake Up-Stop Child Abuse. Ralph is the president and project leader. Dr Jones continues to write, play and release his own music. His 2009 release, Songs 1987-2009, covers the highlights of twenty three years of recorded work. 
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