Web Page 3109 9th March First Picture: Paul Jones

Second Picture; Manfred Mann

Third Picture: The Blues Band

Fourth Picture; Solent Road School

Paul Jones It was great to hear Jools Holland introduce Paul Jones as Paul from Portsmouth during his New Years Eve Hootenanny. We tend to forget that he is a local lad. As a child he lived in St Helens Road in Drayton and attended Solent Road school under his given name Paul Adrian Pond. I must have been in my second or third year at Solent Road when he was in the top year before moving on to the Portsmouth Grammar School. Paul was born on 24th February 1942. He first came to prominence as the original lead singer and harmonicist of Manfred Mann (1962–66) with whom he had several hit records including "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" and "Pretty Flamingo". After leaving the band, he established a solo career and in 1979, he formed The Blues Band, and toured with them until their breakup in 2022. He presented The Blues Show on BBC Radio 2 for thirty-two years, from 1986 to 2018, and continues to perform alongside former Manfred Mann bandmates in The Manfreds In 1967, Jones starred opposite model Jean Shrimpton in the 1967 film Privilege directed by Peter Watkins. He was cast as a pop singer and sang the songs "I've Been a Bad, Bad Boy" and "Free me. In January 1968, he was part of the "Big Show" package tour of Australia and New Zealand with The Who and Small Faces. #

In 1973 Jones guest appeared in ITC The Protectors, in an episode called "Goodbye George. In 1975 he guest-starred in an episode of The Sweeney ("Chalk and Cheese") as Tommy Garret, a boxer-turned-highwayman. In 1976 he performed the role of Juan Peron on the original concept album of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Evita alongside Julie Covington as Eva, Colm Wilkinson as Che and Barbara Dickson as the Mistress. In October 1977, he starred as Sir Francis Drake in the musical premiere of Drake's Dream featuring music and lyrics by Lynne and Richard Riley and book by Simon Brett. On 4th May 2009, he and his harmonica featured in a song during a concert by Joe Bonamassa at the Royal Albert Hall in London. In January 2018, it was announced that he would be replaced as presenter of BBC Radio 2's Blues Show by Cerys Matthews in mid-May. His last broadcast as presenter was on 23 April 2018. He was first married (1963–1976) to novelist and reviewer Sheila MacLeod. There were two sons from the marriage, Matthew and Jacob. He is now married to the former actress and latterly Christian speaker, Fiona Hendley-Jones. They met whilst both acting at the National Theatre. He converted to Christianity in the mid-1980s as a result of being invited by Cliff Richard to a Luis Palau evangelistic event. Griff Writes:- A couple of weeks ago Peter was talking about Ever Ready batteries and radios. In 1958 my Dad bought an Ever Ready "Sky Leader " portable transistor radio to go on holiday with to Cornwall for a family holiday and as was the tradition back then it was a holiday on a holiday grass field caravan site, none of your posh mobile (but static!) homes in those far off days. I remember this radio so well mainly due to the No.1 record being played back then and it was "Dream Lover" sung by Bobby Darin on the radio at least 3 times a day. I was word lyric perfect on this song before the end of the holiday and I still am. I kept this family radio up until about 7 years ago, still in very nice condition and fully working but I sold it on to a radio collector as it became part of my big clear out. The problem with all these early transistor radio's was the thumping great Ever Ready 9 volt battery it required to power it. Whenever I hear Dream Lover being played today it takes me right back to that August holiday at Carbis Bay, Cornwall and the hot 2 weeks we had there. Sadly no photo's exist of the holiday or I believe were taken at the time. Melvyn (Griff) Griffiths. PS. Sorry if you will all be singing "Dream Lover" in your head after reading this........lol Stay in touch Peter GSSeditor@gamil.com