IF EVER I want to reinvent the wheel I’ll be asking George Jones for help. He’s a man who for over 70 years has kept his wheel turning. Sometimes it slows down, it might even threaten to stop on occasions but such is his energy and faith George peddles away and it’s up and running in no time.
All this despite the fact that for the past 15 years he has suffered a complex back problem which is inoperable but the agony doesn’t show when he’s performing.
Take this year, for instance. He and the Clubsound boys had a massive hit with their Rock & Roll Years touring the 50s and 60s music and cabaret show throughout Northern Ireland. They had just finished when lockdown struck and everything on track stopped – including George. He admitted to me he hasn’t played a note of music since February, unheard of since he was a 13-year-old boy when his beloved sister Lally bought him a guitar.
Immediately he formed The Monarchs skiffle group with a mate called Van Morrison and the boys from Bloomfield were a hit.
His record is remarkable. Over 60 years playing the guitar and singing, 50 years with Clubsound. Sadly this year’s celebrations have had to be postponed and the promised reception at Belfast City Hall will have to wait as will the anniversary tour.
He was 35 years in broadcasting. His programme won awards, had 87,000 loyal listeners; it broke his heart when BBC decided to drop the show and replace George, something that devastated the man, deeply affecting his life both mentally and emotionally.
However, U105 scooped him up and he built a fan base in no time and once more became one of the most popular broadcasters on radio. But the hurt remained.
His charity work is well known
He was always one of our most loved celebrities, usually making a front-row appearance in Children in Need, even being invited to London to join the Riverdance cast. He donned Michael Flatley’s blue silk shirt and acquitted himself extremely well.
On another occasion he designed a dress for Paul Costello, modelled by Miss Northern Ireland. He’s a versatile entertainer who has acted and appeared in musicals, and, with jazz drummer Tommy Thomas, wrote a successful comedy play.
There have also been many dangerous times travelling Ireland during the Troubles, entertaining audiences from all cultures and backgrounds. The band were residents at the Abercorn in 1972, surviving the terrible bomb that exploded late one Saturday afternoon killing two young women and injuring 130.
So from touring the world and hitting the heights, the coronavirus threatened to stop George in his tracks – but it failed; indeed, it opened up new horizons.
This is the side of George Jones the public are yet to discover. George Jones the artist.
Again it was down to his big sister Lally, who had come upon some sketches her brother had drawn when he was at school.
“I started colouring them in and I became so involved that I began painting and in the last three years I’ve produced over 200 paintings. I’ve only walked away from one: I didn’t like the railway track in the snow as it disappeared into the night under a pink moon but maybe I’ll go back to it some day.” All George’s tracks lead somewhere.
As friends discover George’s talent, a God-given talent, he insists, he’s getting commissions and is considering a dedicated web page and an exhibition when the time is right.
Many works have a religious theme
This is no accident. Six years ago George became a Christian. He admits he learned tolerance and gives thanks for surviving the Troubles, a period when, like so many musicians and entertainers, he brought happiness to all sides of the religious divide. His art is a powerful force in his life.
“I played in a band in church but sometimes I just had to lay down my guitar and take up a pad and sketch. Some divine inspiration encouraged me to draw and it has saved my sanity.”
From a state of depression after the BBC experience, through his faith he has found it in his heart to forgive and to acknowledge that radio is a young person's game these days, although many would dispute that.
It was his daughter Natalie who talked of God guiding her through the blindness she was born with that impressed her father.
“She invited me into church and it has changed my life. I now realise that all I have done throughout my life, good and bad, has been watched over by God from that day in Bloomfield when our wee Skiffle group played for our parents. My father was sitting there with his cap on his knee and when I asked him what he thought he said, ‘It was all right.’
“But he added something I’ve never forgotten. ‘Don’t forget son you’ll never get anywhere playing that wee ukule-lillie’”!
Well, basically the guitar, good fellow musicians and a fantastic drive to make music has taken that son round the world and back. Now he’s spending his time perfecting his techniques on canvas but music is still in his heart. He has some story to tell and that’s next, a book entitled You’ll Never Get Anywhere Playing That Wee Ukule-lillie.
