Marti Jones is a singer and painter originally from Uniontown, Ohio

Uniontown, Ohio

Uniontown is a census-designated place in Stark County, Ohio, United States. The population was 2,802 at the 2000 census. Uniontown was named #69 on CNN Money's list.Uniontown is part of the Canton–Massillon Metropolitan Statistical Area....

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Jones was initially a member of the band Color Me Gone, who recorded one EP for A&M Records in 1983. Her first solo album, 1985's "Unsophisticated Time" (A&M), was produced by Don Dixon. Jones and Dixon subsequently married, and Dixon continued to produce all of his wife's subsequent albums.

Two more albums for A&M followed in the 1980s, each of them featuring a wide range of supporting musicians (including Marshall Crenshaw

Marshall Crenshaw

Marshall Crenshaw is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist best known for his song "Someday, Someway".-Biography:...

, Mitch Easter

Mitch Easter

Mitch Easter is a songwriter, musician, and producer. As a producer, he is probably best known for his work with R.E.M. from 1981 through 1984, though he has also worked with many other acts including The Hang Ups, Pavement, Suzanne Vega, Game Theory, Marshall Crenshaw, Velvet Crush, and...

, The Uptown Horns, Paul Carrack

Paul Carrack

Paul Carrack is an English singer, songwriter and musician. Carrack has been a member of several bands including Ace, Squeeze, Mike + The Mechanics, and Roxy Music, been a session and touring musician for several others including Nick Lowe, and has enjoyed success as a solo artist as well...

, T-Bone Burnett

T-Bone Burnett

Joseph Henry Burnett , widely known as T-Bone Burnett, is an American musician, songwriter, and soundtrack and record producer.He was a guitarist in Bob Dylan's band on the Rolling Thunder Revue...

, Darlene Love

Darlene Love

Darlene Love is an American popular music singer and actress. She gained prominence in the 1960s for the song "He's a Rebel," a #1 American single in 1962, and was part of the Phil Spector stable that produced a celebrated Christmas album in 1963....

 and many others). Jones' sound encompassed jangle pop

Jangle pop

Jangle pop is a genre of alternative rock from the mid-1980s that "marked a return to the chiming or jangly guitars and pop melodies of the '60s" bands such as The Byrds, with their electric twelve-string guitars and power pop song structures. Mid-1980s jangle pop was a non-mainstream "pop-based...

, ballads, and even southern-style soul material. Her voice and singing style reminded some observers of Dusty Springfield

Dusty Springfield

Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'BrienSources use both Isabel and Isobel as the spelling of her second name. OBE , known professionally as Dusty Springfield and dubbed The White Queen of Soul, was a British pop singer whose career extended from the late 1950s to the 1990s...

, who mined a similarly eclectic field of pop music; others compared her voice to that of Linda Ronstadt

Linda Ronstadt

Linda Ronstadt is an American popular music recording artist. She has earned eleven Grammy Awards, two Academy of Country Music awards, an Emmy Award, an ALMA Award, numerous United States and internationally certified gold, platinum and multiplatinum albums, in addition to Tony Award and Golden...

, Bonnie Raitt

Bonnie Raitt

Bonnie Lynn Raitt is an American blues singer-songwriter and a renowned slide guitar player. During the 1970s, Raitt released a series of acclaimed roots-influenced albums which incorporated elements of blues, rock, folk and country, but she is perhaps best known for her more commercially...

, or Annie Lennox

Annie Lennox

Annie Lennox, OBE , born Ann Lennox, is a Scottish singer-songwriter, political activist and philanthropist. After achieving minor success in the late 1970s with The Tourists, with fellow musician David A...

.

Jones' albums featured both original material (mostly written by Dixon, or Dixon and Jones together), and covers of songs by singer/songwriters such as Janis Ian

Janis Ian

Janis Ian is an American songwriter, singer, musician, columnist, and science fiction author. Ian first entered the folk music scene while still a teenager in the mid-sixties; most active musically in that decade and the 1970s, she has continued recording into the 21st century...

, Elvis Costello

Elvis Costello

Elvis Costello , born Declan Patrick MacManus, is an English singer-songwriter. He came to prominence as an early participant in London's pub rock scene in the mid-1970s and later became associated with the punk/New Wave genre. Steeped in word play, the vocabulary of Costello's lyrics is broader...

, John Hiatt

John Hiatt

John Hiatt is an American rock guitarist, pianist, singer, and songwriter. He has played a variety of musical styles on his albums, including New Wave, blues and country. Hiatt has been nominated for several Grammy Awards - although he has never won- and has been awarded a variety of other...

, Jackie DeShannon

Jackie DeShannon

Jackie DeShannon is an American singer-songwriter with a string of hit song credits from the 1960s onwards. She was one of the first female singer-songwriters of the rock 'n' roll period.- Life and early career :...

, Richard Barone

Richard Barone

Richard Barone is a rock musician born in Tampa, Florida who gained attention as frontman for The Bongos. He works as a songwriter, arranger, author, director, and producer, releases albums as a solo artist, tours, and has created major concert events at Carnegie Hall, Hollywood Bowl and New York's...

, and Graham Parker

Graham Parker

Graham Parker is a British rock singer and songwriter, who is best known as the lead singer of the popular British band Graham Parker & the Rumour.-Early career :...

. For a move to the RCA label in 1990, Jones relied more heavily on original material and adapted a somewhat more adult-contemporary sound. She was dropped by RCA after one album (Any Kind Of Lie).

After losing her label, Jones, 35, decided to settle down and have a child. It wasn't until her daughter, Shane Marie Dixon, was 4 years old before she made another album, my "My Long-Haired Life". Having cut her characteristically long hair when she became a mother, the album alludes to her life of singing back when her hair was long. The album's cover shows a self-made painting of Jones sitting in a barber's chair, her golden locks strewn upon the floor.

On subsequent recordings, she returned to her customary mix of originals and covers.

In the past few years, Jones has curtailed her singing career and has focused on painting (under the name Marti Jones Dixon). She did, however, tour with singer/songwriter Amy Rigby

Amy Rigby

Amy Rigby is an American singer-songwriter. After playing with several New York bands she began a solo career, recording several albums which had only modest sales despite enthusiastic reviews. She settled into a career of touring small venues and private parties while raising a daughter, then...

as "The Cynical Girls" in 2005. Then in 2008, she and her husband released Lucky Stars: New Lullabies for Old Souls a download-only album credited to Marti Jones & Don Dixon. Billed as an album of "calm, soothing music" (and as a departure from both Jones' and Dixon's previous sound), it featured six vocal songs and five instrumentals.

In 2003, Jones recorded the song "Room With a View" for the tribute to Let's Active cd "Every Word."

In fall of 2009, Jones toured with her husband to perform a series of live acoustic performances.

Discography

• 1985: Unsophisticated Time
• 1986: Match Game
• 1988: Used Guitars
• 1990: Any Kind Of Lie
• 1996: My Long Haired Life
• 1996: Live From Spirit Square
• 2002: My Tidy Doily Dream
• 2008: Lucky Stars: New Lullabies for Old Souls (with Don Dixon)

Sources

• http://efolkmusic.org/ArtMusic/ViewArtist.aspx?AID=94
• http://www.musicianguide.com/biographies/1608004290/Marti-Jones.html