Jones Purcell — Passing of the Musical Mad Genius

Published by greggkirk on February 23, 2021February 23, 2021

It’s February 23, 2021, and at about 2:33 pm EST today I found out that a good friend of mine passed. Jones Purcell. Maybe you knew him, too.

If you lived in the Delaware area from 1980 to about 1995 there’s a good chance you would have heard of him even if you hadn’t followed any of the goings on in the music scene in that area. You probably would have heard a story or two about him losing his cool with someone in a bar, and the end of the story usually spelled out direly-negative consequences for Jones. But equally, you had also probably heard what a great songwriter he was. In fact, people would probably tell you he wasn’t just a great songwriter — he was one of the greatest songwriters the state of Delaware had ever produced. All of that smashed together makes for a complex picture of a man with equally as many talents as vices and personal demons.

I first met Jones Purcell in 1982 over the phone. I was sitting in my dorm room at the University of Delaware as I applied for a classified ad looking for a guitar player to play “modern rock.” When Jones revealed who he was on the phone, I remember having already heard of him. And for some reason the two of us felt compelled to reveal that we both had spiky hair, so at least we got the modern-rock look requirement out of the way. I don’t remember why nothing transpired from the call, but I wouldn’t meet Jones in person for several more years.

I did catch him and one of his bands playing an outside show in front of Memorial Hall at the University of Delaware sometime around 1983-4. During the set, someone’s dog wandered onstage, and Jones made a few jokes about it over the mic. Nobody did anything to get the dog off stage, and it wasn’t long before the dog decided the stage was a great place to relieve itself, leaving a pile of poo not far from where Jones was standing. Not phased at all, Jones quipped, “Everyone’s a critic!”

I had also seen his band the MIBs (with guitarist Tommy Alderson), and the Jones Purcell Band, and I’d heard some sort of rumors about his rhythm section getting stolen by Tommy Conwell, which had left Jones derailed for about four years. By that time I had co-founded Big Shout Magazine, and Jones officially introduced himself to me at the Stone Balloon one night by pulling the back of my hair and telling me to “get a haircut!” By this time, my spiky hair had grown down the middle of my back and apparently Jones didn’t approve.

Within a few months of this meeting I reached out to interview him for his newly-formed band Kamikaze Posse that he developed with drummer Eddie Everett and bassist Tris Hovanec.

In that interview that appeared in the magazine, I said something that was probably the most true thing I ever wrote or uttered about Jones:

In the coming years I asked Jones to be a guest writer for Big Shout… doing day-in-the-life stories about his job-hunting adventures or food reviews that sometimes separated us from a few advertisers. Still, the feedback we got from the readers was always positive. And it also helped Jones out with some cash because he was always down and out in those years.

On New Year’s Eve 1996, Jones played in a version of my band Shovelhead for a First Night concert we had been invited to do. It was the first and only time I ever played with Jones onstage and it was also the last time I would see him in person.

Not long after, I sold the magazine and moved to Connecticut to pursue a different career in 1999. At that point I had heard no news of Jones’ whereabouts and I thought the worst.

But one night in 2018 I received a Facebook phone call coming through my laptop. It was Jones appearing from the ether. He told me he had been living in New Orleans for a few years but had returned to the Elkton, MD area because his health was failing. He admitted that he had been close to death a few times and that he needed oxygen tubes to breath properly. It was so great to hear his pirate voice, his laugh, and his stories of his life perpetually falling down around him that he told in a delivery that made them sound absurd and humorous. And I didn’t believe that he was close to death. He still sounded like the Jones I knew. But before he hung up, he said in an utterly serious tone, “I’m dying, Gregg.”

I wouldn’t believe it. I could only imagine him the way I remembered him… with he and I sharing Clint Eastwood-style cigars and drinking cheap beer at the Deer Park Tavern and loudly jeering whatever band was playing until we were warned that we’d be kicked out. Him ending his stories with a laugh and then shaking my hand and commanding me to “look me in the eye, motherfucker!”

Last summer, I played a few music fundraiser shows on Facebook Live to raise money for a nonprofit I now run that helps Lyme patients stay on treatment. Jones saw me playing several of my original songs and was extremely positive about them to the point of gushing. I almost thought he was fucking with me. We had a few phone conversations over the summer and he confided that he really enjoyed these new songs and that he would like to “get his greasy hands on them.” I took this as one of the biggest compliments I’ve ever had… positive praise from the musical mad scientist himself. I promised to send him a batch of new songs to see if he had any advice.

By the beginning of the year, Jones had responded a few time with some suggestions, but on January 5, his response seemed a little unlike the healthy Jones. It was a bit weak-sounding and patronizing… “Once again, great! Go wherever your music takes you.”

That was my last correspondence from Jones, and it looks as if on February 23, Jones went wherever the music took him.

I’m only holding good feelings about you, brother Jones. I know where you are now, the going is a lot easier and you deserve it. You’ve been through a lot. You’ve left a rough trail, but you’ve made some of the best music the little state of Delaware has ever heard. I know there are thousands who agree with me and think of you in mythic proportions. You always were larger than life. But it looks as if life has finally caught up to where you are now. God bless and vaya con dios, mi amigo.