Biography
The Clash opened their debut album with a track named for Janie Jones, its real-life muse, although most listeners in the United States never learned the details of her earlier notoriety. During the mid-1960s she worked the cabaret circuit, projecting attitude far more than vocal polish. In London she became better known for throwing extravagant parties than for anything she sang on stage or disc. Headlines followed in 1964 after she arrived at a film premiere wearing a topless gown. A novelty single called “Witches Brew,” released the next year, climbed to number 46 on the U.K. chart. Several other 45s she issued throughout the decade carried a burlesque, camp sensibility that owed more to Mae West than to the prevailing sound of swinging London. When she attempted straighter material written by Jimmy Webb or by the team of Carter and Lewis, the shortcomings in her voice became impossible to overlook. A marriage to songwriter John Christian Dee, author of the Pretty Things’ early British Invasion single “Don’t Bring Me Down,” kept her name in occasional circulation. Renewed press attention arrived only in 1973, when she received a seven-year prison term for controlling prostitutes. After her release in 1977, Joe Strummer supplied her with the song “House of the Ju-Ju Queen,” which she cut with the Clash; the recording surfaced in 1983 on a single credited to Janie Jones and the Lash. Her memoirs, The Devil and Miss Jones, appeared in 1993.
Albums
