Marti Jones - Color Me Gone

I’m not sure anymore when I first heard about Marti Jones, but it probably must have been in the late 1980s, reading raving reviews of her first couple of albums in OOR, the alternative Dutch music magazine.

Much later I found two of her CDs here in Thailand; Used Guitars & My Long Haired Life, and played these from time to time.

But as usual, other music is thrown in your face, and some of it sticks, so you move on. 

I recall her teaming up with producer/artist Don Dixon, who later became her husband, again good albums and reviews, but somehow it got lost…

Then suddenly Marti came back again, courtesy of my old blog pal, Jonder! 

He posted a neat cover collection of hers as Marti’s Jukebox over at Jon-Ky's blog, a nice surprise which brought back some sweet memories.

His Marti post triggered something, especially when I discovered that she only had several albums & singles out...

She started her singing career in a band called Color Me Gone, but called it quits after 1 e.p., and started her solo career.

Ten albums followed, including two with Don Dixon, but despite all the positive reviews, she never broke through; sad story.

After You're Not the Bossa Me (2014), she threw in the towel musically, instead focusing on painting, which she takes seriously, and the results speak for themselves.

Two years ago, a digital album suddenly appeared out of nowhere: My Biscuit Baby: The Lost Springfest Tapes, but I haven't been able to find any reviews or information, weird...

Believe it or not, but Jonder's Jukebox compilation seems to be the first collection of her work; as far as I know, there has never been any official compilation of her work, unreal.

Jonder's Jukebox is excellent; however, these are all covers — nothing wrong with that —but I thought I'd take a different approach: just 1 or 2 songs from each album + a few oddball tracks from various albums to spice it up!

The result is a pretty decent overview without any duplication from that great Jukebox collection. However, there are still a few (excellent!) covers here: Without Love (Nick Lowe), The Element Within Her, Sleep Of The Just & Just a Memory (Elvis Costello), Room With A View (Mitch Easter), Only in My Sleep (The Shoes), and Old Friend (Loudon Wainwright III).

Many thanks to Jonder for his demo contribution and assorted assistance.

As a bonus, in addition to the usual relevant artwork, I've added a great 2009 write-up by Jon Cummings, which was posted as The Popdose Guide (remember those?!) to Marti Jones, plus reviews of her albums that appeared afterwards. 

Enjoy.