Reporter Gary Demuth can be reached at 822-1405 or by e-mail at gdemuth@salina.com.
By Gary Demuth
Salina Journal
Just hours before his first live performance as Dolly Parton's new drummer, Tom Jones felt relaxed.
Then he saw who was waiting in the audience.
Parton, then at the height of her country/pop fame in the early 1980s, was playing at Los Angeles' premier music club, The Roxy. Jones, who had been hired as her new drummer just days before, had just finished setting-up his drum kit onstage and decided to step out for a Coke.
As he made his way through the auditorium, Jones saw several familiar faces waiting for the show to begin: Don Henley and Glen Frey of the Eagles, pop singer Linda Rondstadt, and this guy named Mick Jagger.
Jones began to panic. Luckily, the stage lights ultimately saved him.
"Before we went on, the house lights went down and the stage lights came on," he said. "You couldn't see anyone then."
The performance was a success, and Jones spent the next two years touring the world with Parton and her band.
Today, Jones, 55, is manager at Ace Hardware Home Center, 321 S. Broadway. But 25 years ago, Jones was a respected session drummer in Nashville who played behind legendary country artists like Parton, George Jones, Crystal Gayle and Lee Greenwood.
Jones even formed his own rock band in 1981, Bandera. The band was signed to a major record label and released one album that year, which subsequently tanked. Jones called the band a "no-hit wonder."
Mr. Beat grows up
Growing up in Salina, Jones expected to join the family business as soon as he graduated from high school. In 1961, his father had started the first Gibson's store in the area on North Santa Fe. In 1966, the store moved to 321 S. Broadway and later became Ace Hardware.
Jones had become interested in drumming in the fifth-grade and found he had a talent for keeping a steady beat.
Salinan Loren Banninger, a close friend of Jones since the two were locker partners in the second grade, said Jones was known as "Mr. Beat."
"He never missed a beat -- he was like a metronome," said Banninger, a media teacher at Salina South High School and bassist for the local classic rock band The Blades.
Banninger joined his first band at the invitation of Jones, who had formed a junior-high band called Sticks and Stones.
"A couple of his friends bought guitars, he had drums, and he told me I was going to play the bass guitar," Banninger said. "We played in the Gibson's parking lot on a flatbed trailer."
As Jones became more proficient on the drums, he joined Salina's drum and bugle corps, The Silver Sabers, and played in the marching band and orchestra at Salina High School (later Salina Central High School). In 1968, he was honored as Kansas state champion drummer.
After high school, Jones played drums at several Salina clubs, backing musicians at the Pink Garter and Red Pussycat. At Wichita's T-Bone Club, he backed several touring musicians, including a good number from Nashville.
"It was interesting," Jones said. "One week, you'd be playing with a Nashville musician, then another week you'd have the guy that sang 'Teen Angel' (Mark Dinning), and then next week there would be a comedian and strippers."
Off to Nashville
In Wichita, Jones met an aspiring songwriter named Jack Ruth, who was determined to move to Nashville and write songs for Johnny Cash. When Ruth made the move in 1972, Jones chose to tag along.
For three years, Jones picked up drumming gigs wherever he could find them. His big break came when he was hired to play in the Grand Ole Opry band, backing a variety of legendary country performers.
"We'd do concerts and work the road," Jones said. "We'd play at the Opry on Friday and then go over and jam with other musicians at Ernest Tubb's record shop at midnight. You'd be jamming along and Willie Nelson would just show up and play with you."
The future Mrs. Jones
In the fall of 1973, Jones met someone who would turn out to be the most important person in his life -- his future wife, Tamara.
He met Tamara through Ruth, who had managed to schedule a meeting with Johnny Cash. Tamara, who grew up in Hendersonville, Tenn., was best friends and roommates with Carlene Cash, the daughter of Cash's wife, June Carter.
Carlene and Tamara were at the Cash house when Jones and Ruth met with Cash. Ruth was smitten with Carlene, but Carlene refused go out with him unless he also found a date for her friend Tamara.
"Jack brought me along as a wingman," Jones said. "What I loved about (Tamara) was she was not involved in the music industry. It didn't impress her because she had grown up around those folks."
After dating for several years, Jones married Tamara on Aug. 11, 1979.
By that time, Jones had become more in-demand as a session drummer. For three years, he played with an ex-gospel singer named Charlie Louvin. Then in 1975, Jones met singer Crystal Gayle and toured with her band for about a year.
"She'd already had a lot of hits then, including 'Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue,' " Jones said.
Drumming for Dolly
In 1977, Jones was hired by Dolly Parton, who had just spent several weeks auditioning drummers in Los Angeles and Nashville. Jones was her last audition. He dragged his drum kit to Parton's home and played three or four songs with her band. He was hired on the spot.
"Dolly is everything you think she is," Jones recalled fondly. "She has an outgoing, bubbly personality, is a great songwriter and also a very astute businesswoman."
Jones toured the world with Parton and her band, including a command performance for the Queen of England and several television shows that included "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson," "The Merv Griffin Show" and "Saturday Night Live."
The band also played at Salina's Memorial Hall. It was a memorable concert, Banninger said, because Jones's parents invited Parton and the entire band to their house for a barbecue.
"Dolly was so grateful, because at that time she couldn't go anywhere in public without being mobbed because she was such an icon," Banninger said.
Jones recalled one Parton concert in San Francisco where security was provided by the notorious motorcycle gang, the Hell's Angels.
"There were these Hell's Angels lined up backstage, and the band had to ease through them," Jones said. "One really big guy, I remember, burped on the top of my head and said, 'I loved your music, man!' Those were some unforgettable times."
But the man could sing
Between concert dates, Jones drummed for other musicians like Travis Tritt, Lorrie Morgan, Jerry Lee Lewis, Linda Rondstadt, Johnny Paycheck and Johnny Cash.
Jones played for another Jones, George, on and off for three years between 1979 and 1981. George Jones had a volatile relationship with his band, and Tom Jones found himself quitting several times.
"Everyone knows about his drinking problems," Jones said. "There were times we'd play and he wouldn't show up at all. The band would have to sneak out of the building, and there would be angry people out front throwing beer bottles at us.
"Other times, he was the nicest guy in the world. Talk about a man who could sing. He sings notes that shouldn't work but do."
Ready for a family
Jones had made a good living as a Nashville musician for 14 years, but by 1983, he was ready to call it quits. He was tired of the musician's lifestyle of late hours and constant touring. Besides, he and Tamara wanted to start a family.
"It was a tough decision," Tamara said. "But we felt if we were going to have kids and a normal lifestyle, Nashville wasn't the right place to do it."
The couple moved back to Salina, where Jones joined the family business. They had two daughters -- Jennifer, now 22 and a senior at the University of Kansas, and Lindsay, now 16 and a junior at Salina Central High School.
Jones said he never regretted his decision to move back to Salina, but for the first few years he found himself missing music terribly.
"I didn't turn on the radio for years," he said.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Banninger convinced Jones to play with The Blades, but family and work obligations caused Jones to leave the band after just a few years (Salinan Dean Kranzler now drums for the band).
The performance itch
Although Jones hasn't played drums regularly for more than two decades, he's beginning to get the performance itch again now that his daughters are older.
Tamara, for one, would love to see her husband pick up the sticks again.
"He's been approached several times about playing again," she said. "I'd like to see him do it because he's such a natural. Dolly Parton said to me once, 'He's just got it.' "
The man once called "Mr. Beat" may be a bit rusty on the beat, but he doesn't think it would be all that difficult to recapture his drum mojo.
"I didn't play for about five years after Nashville, but then I picked it right back up again -- it was like riding a bike," he said. "I may be older now, but I still think I have a feel for it."
n Reporter Gary Demuth can be reached at 822-1405 or by e-mail at gdemuth@salina.com.
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