Ace Jones: Alabama Blues Man

From the Alabama Blues Project Summer Newsletter


Radio station owner and blues musician C.W. Jones became known as "Ace Jones" in the 1950s while playing a house party in Dayton, Alabama. His blues band had everyone at the party jumping and the house rocking to "Boogie Chillin" until the floor fell in - and he played on! Since that night, he was known as "Ace Jones the House Rocker."

Ace was the son of sharecroppers and grew up one of 13 kids in a two bedroom house with a kitchen, an outhouse and an outdoor well of water. His father and brother played guitar, and he wanted to do it, too. Since the family didn't have the money to buy a guitar for him, 11-year-old Ace brought home an apple crate from school one day. His father split it up, fit it together, and slapped some strings on it. Ace couldn't be stopped. He made so much noise, he'd be run out of the house.

Ace quit school when he was 15 and milked cows on a farm for work. When the boss's son showed off a guitar he didn't know how to play, Ace made an offer. His boss took $3 out of his pay each week over five weeks, and Ace had his first real instrument. He was able to develop his skills more. Two of his biggest inspirations were Little Son Jackson and Jimmy Reed. Eventually, Ace earned enough money for a small amplifier and a microphone, and he added a harmonica player and spoons beater to form a small band.

In 1950s Alabama, Ace played the blues at four different kinds of house parties. For young blacks, he said he didn't make too much money. Older blacks charged 30 to 55 cents cover charge to pay the band's fees. White college students paid $25-$35 per night. Older whites would pay $25 a night but would also pass a hat around for tips. Ace reminisces about one night when his band made $400 dollars - doing limbo with a pogo stick, the party-goers would drop money in the hat each time they went under. He also earned a solo $100 tip in his shirt pocket once from a woman who wanted him to play "Your Cheating Heart" by Hank Williams.

"In the 50s, all everybody listened to around here was the blues. If you played anything else, you shouldn't be there," recalls Ace. "That's what it was all about. The blues. That's what I grew up on, and I love it, and I always will. To my dying day, I'll still be playing the blues."

After playing the blues and working odd jobs around rural Alabama, Ace followed in the footsteps of many southern blues musicians and made the migration up north. In 1966, he moved to Detroit at the suggestion of a cousin who played bass guitar. He played with different bands before saving up money working at Chrysler and buying all the equipment needed for his own band to play. Two of his frequent band mates were young boys ages 12 and 13 – his most reliable musicians – who would come in and out of the clubs by the back door with Ace. As an added bonus to his career in the Motor City, he recorded two 45s.

Unfortunately, bad luck came to Ace in Detroit. He had opened a clothing store that was robbed, so then he was ready to come back home to Alabama. His wife wouldn’t leave the north, so Ace left her all his property and belongings (which sadly included all of his copies of the 45s he recorded) minus a few dollars in his pocket, and headed back down south.

"Detroit was a good place for me. I loved it, but it got to a point where the city just didn’t agree with me. I got tired of sirens, gangs and crime. They took my business away from me, and that was it,” says Ace. “I never was a city man.”

The young men he played with in Detroit made a few trips to Alabama to play, but gigs didn’t pan out. Ace was starting all over again. He took a second wife and adopted her two children. Later, the couple added two more kids to the family. This marriage didn’t work out either. Ace was divorced and starting over again. For four months, he slept in his sister’s trailer with a kerosene heater and no lights. Ace says God answered his prayers when he landed 10 acres of land that had $5000 worth of cedar on it for just $5000. His family land was adjacent, and when it was split up, he had four more acres.

“I’m not lucky, it’s a blessing. I live a life to be blessed with,” explains Ace. “Money is not to be hovered over. If I see something I want, money goes – like this radio station.”

He spends his time at his radio station, WJWC, which covers a 12-mile radius, playing a few gigs here and there, and working as a deejay for private parties. Ace hasn’t lost his style.

“I do a good show, because I’ll play just as hard for one person as I do for 1000 out there. When I play the blues, I feel the blues. I play it, and I love it.”