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Jon has been involved in performing and entertaining from an early age. The first nine years of his life were spent in England, where he often entertained crowds singing at community concerts that were organized by his grandmother. She was an accomplished musician who taught piano and accordion and had played violin in an orchestra that provided the musical sound track for silent films. In fact, it was his grandmother, Marnie, who bought him his first guitar and showed him his first simple chords.
Jon always had a guitar around but didn’t concentrate on it until after his family moved to Canada, in the sixties. “I remember looking at the guitar leaning up against the wall when I was 17 and thinking ’I’m gonna’ learn to play that thing”. Many hours were spent up in his bedroom, wood shedding.
There were three distinct pivotal points in Jon’s musical ambitions. The first was seeing Texas blues man, Freddie King perform. “Up to that point I had been playing and listening to bands like C.C.R. and The Stones. After seeing Freddie, who was opening for Grand Funk, playing, singing and sweating, the soul oozing out of the man, I realized that I had just seen the real thing and that all the other music I had been listening to up to that point was kind of irrelevant. It was a revelation. I couldn’t even watch the headliners after seeing Freddie. I had just seen the master; the students were pale in comparison. It was then that I realized that I wanted to play music for the rest of my life and make a career out of it”. The second was attending a concert by Willie Dixon and the Chicago All-stars with Big Walter Horton on harmonica, and meeting them after the show. Jon asked them if they were interested in attending a party and maybe doing some jamming. Big Walter took a shot out of his Mickey of Canadian Club and said “the only place we be jamming is on down the road”. They were headed out that night to do a show somewhere out east the following night. “These guys were real musicians and the only thing that mattered was getting to the next gig. That left an impression on me”. Then there was the Joe Cocker concert in Edmonton in the mid 70’s. “Cornell Dupree was the guitar player and they played a long opening set before Joe came out. Cornell just sat on top of his small Fender amp, as casual as you please, and played the most incredible blues guitar. That showed me that you don’t need smoke and lights to put on a show; you just have to be good”.
Since then, Jon has appeared on shows with Spirit Of The West, Skydiggers, Juno award winning root’s rocker (and friend of Bob Dylan), Paul James and Juno award winning blues guitarist Johnny V. He has played with Grammy award winning Texas blues man, Donald Ray Johnson and Canadian rock legend, Kelly Jay (formerly of Crowbar-“Ooh what a feeling”).
Jon has been influenced by many different forms of music and has played a diversity of styles over the years but he considers his main guitar influences to be, what he likes to call the Holy Trinity of guitar players: Freddie King, Dickie Betts & Jimi Hendrix.
A more than adequate blues guitarist, Jon can also pick some great country licks. Check out 'Cowboy Angel' on Holly and Jon’s CD - Big Wind on the Way. This is pure, traditional country pickin'.
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