By Larry Grogan
The history of funk and soul is heavily populated with artists that labored for years to little more than local fame, and then broke through briefly for a taste of national acclaim.
Johnny Jones & The King Casuals was just such a band.  It doesn’t hurt that for a brief time in the mid-60’s they counted Jimi Hendrix among their members*.
Johnny Jones was born in 1936, and by the early 1950’s was living in the hotbed of urban blues, Chicago. Over the years he would play with both Junior Wells and Freddy King. Jones would move to Nashville, Tennessee in the early 60’s. There he worked as a studio guitarist and formed the band the Imperial Seven.
The King Casuals (some references list ‘Kasuals’) were formed in Nashville in the early 60’s. Early members included Jimi Hendrix on guitar and Billy Cox on bass. It’s not clear when Johnny Jones joined the group on guitar and vocals, but there are references to Jones and Hendrix having played together (possibly as the house band on a Nashville TV show).

Sometime after 1965 Hendrix and Cox both left the King Casuals. Cox would reunite with Hendrix a few years later in the Band of Gypsies.  Hendrix would go on to a brief sojourn with Carl Holmes & The Commanders (in Philadelphia) and then on to Greenwich Village where he would be discovered and spirited off to the UK.

In 1968 Brunswick Records signed the King Casuals (now billed as Johnny Jones & the King Casuals). They would record a series of three 45’s for the label between the end of 1968 and the middle of 1969.

All three of these records were prime examples of blues players getting funky (see the aforementioned Junior Wells, Buddy Guy, Little Sonny, Chick Willis, Ice Water Slim, Slim Harpo etc.).

The first, ‘It’s Gonna Be Good’ b/w ‘Chip Off The Old Block’ is a funky killer. The instrumental ‘It’s Gonna Be Good’ opens with a horn fanfare and a grunt from the band, followed by someone wailing ‘OOBAY OOBAY OOBAY!!!’. There’s a great funky guitar line, a hard back-beat and some wailing Hammond organ. Jones lays down some twangy guitar in the background too. ‘Chip Off The Old Block’ (which Jones would re-record in the 90’s)  is more blues-based (but still pretty funky). There are some great Stax-style horns (William Bell probably had something to do with that), and Jones gets to wail on the guitar. The group’s second 45 for Brunswick, ‘Soul Poppin’ b/w ‘Blues for the Brothers’ keeps the momentum going. ‘Soul Poppin’ (another instrumental) is by far the most intense thing the King Casuals ever laid down on vinyl. It opens with Jones’ guitar strumming alone, joined almost immediately by the horn section (with a line that sounds like it was based on ‘Sweet Soul Music’) and the pounding drums. 

The tune moves a long at a breakneck pace, and Jones gets to take a nice long solo. It’s not hard to imagine it being a huge favorite with the dancers. The flip side, ‘Blues for the Brothers’ is a slow tempo, straight blues instrumental where Jones gets to solo at length.
Johnny Jones and the King Casuals third and last 45 for Brunswick is perhaps their best known. Their cover of former King Casuals member Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Purple Haze’ is a Northern Soul fave. It takes the psychedelic classic and bends it out of shape, making it a soul shouter. The singer tends to depart from the lyric sheet, but the band makes up for it in spirit. It makes you wonder what Hendrix thought of it. The flip side, ‘Horsing Around’ is  a smooth soul instrumental with a tip of the hat to Cliff Nobles and Co. **
After the King Casuals stint with Brunswick, Jones went on to record a few 45’s for the Peachtree label, and did a short stint in the band of Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland. In the late 90’s, Jones made his first full length LPs for the Black Magic and Northern Blues labels.

  * Other  members during this period reportedly included Sweet Charles Sherril (later of the James Brown stable) and Charles Walker of Little Charles & The Sidewinders.
**This 45 was also saw a  release in the UK on the Cream label. This was soon withdrawn after it was determined that the Brunswick issue was the only legitimate one.