Australian music legends, Rick Price and Jack Jones have followed the dream and recorded a twelve track tribute album to the west-coast California sounds of the ’60s and ’70s. Sharing a common love for the music of the period, Price and Jones were both equally enamoured by the idea which had been in discussion for a very long time.
“We’ve been chatting for a long time about doing something together, like decades,” explains Jack Jones, who first caught the attention of Australian radio with his band The Southern Sons in 1990. “When we first met we really hit if off just as mates and I was always a big fan of Ricks back in the day, but of course life gets in the way, things happen and you go off and do your own things.
“We started doing some shows with each other in the mid to late ’90s and we started really spending more time together musically. Again, that conversation came up,” Jones continues. “It only took another however many years for it to actually happen, but we just thought it was a great opportunity to finally jump at the chance to really pay homage to a genre of music that’s special to the both of us.”
Titled California Dreaming, the album celebrates the likes of The Mamas And The Papas, Linda Ronstadt, Neil Young, Jackson Browne, Eagles, The Doors, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, The Byrds, Crosby, Stills and Nash & Young, with the track selection been a relatively easy process according to Jones.
“We were pretty much in agreeance with everything. One thing that made it easier was the fact that there are particular artists that are associated with this ‘California Dreaming’ era so that immediately funnelled that time period down to a group of artists – a group of people that were all living in the Laurel Canyon area at the same time, and it was all very incestuous. Everyone was hanging out with each other, and they were all making music with each other so that was the first distilling process,” he says.
“The second one was then picking the songs. We tried to not drift too far off the reservation but also do our thing on the songs as well,” Jones explains. “It’s not a copy record, neither of us wanted to make that kind of record. You just want to be able to celebrate music and the genre, so it’s important that you’re able to do that with authenticity and integrity and be able to inject yourself into it. And that’s what makes it so exciting to go and play as well.”
Since its release, the album reached No. 7 on the Albums Chart and No. 1 on the Australian Album Chart, furthering the boys excitement to celebrate this amazing songbook. Along with their performance of the west-coast California sounds of the ’60s and ’70s, Price and Jones will also be performing some of their own original hits on stage, including Price’s ‘Only Heaven Knows’, ‘Not A Day Goes By’ and Jones’ ‘Hearts In Danger’, ‘Hold Me In Your Arms’ and ‘Always & Ever’.
“We haven’t decided how exactly we are going to do that yet, but we are going to be doing them together, and I’m very excited about that. I’d love to sing some of Rick’s songs with him, I’d be totally down for that,” he laughs. “I think you have to in some way give the kids something new. Of course we want to celebrate our songs and our history too, but it will be nice to do that together. Next year’s going to be a big year, I’m really excited about that.”
When & Where: Geelong Arena, Geelong – May 18 2018. Ticket available via www.ticketek.com.au.
Written by Talia Rinaldo