Jimmy Jones

Best known for the 1960 R&B blockbuster “Handy Man,” Jimmy Jones delivered vocals in a silky yet impassioned falsetto inspired by Clyde McPhatter and Sam Cooke. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, he relocated with his family to New York City and launched his show-business path as a tap dancer. Joining the Berliners in 1954, he stayed with the group after it adopted the name Sparks of Rhythm; the ensemble laid down several tracks in 1955 before Jones departed to launch his own unit, the Savoys. That outfit cut material for Savoy in 1956, then moved to Rama and rebranded as the Pretenders in tribute to the Platters. Over the following years the Pretenders issued sides on multiple labels, occasionally appearing as the Jones Boys, until the act dissolved in 1959. Weary of fronting ensembles, Jones pursued a solo path later that year on the MGM-affiliated Cub imprint. Partnering with writer-producer Otis Blackwell, he revived a composition he had penned during his Sparks of Rhythm tenure titled “Handy Man,” which surged into the pop and R&B Top Five by early 1960.

Jones followed that breakthrough with another Top Ten entry, “Good Timin’,” later the same year. Although those two singles marked the peak of his mainstream commercial impact, he continued to record through much of the decade. Remaining with Cub until 1962, he grazed the lower chart rungs with “That’s When I Cried” and “I Told You So.” Subsequent stops at Ro-Jac and Vee-Jay over the next two years saw his sound evolve toward a polished New York uptown soul style. Between 1965 and 1967 he recorded for Roulette, Parkway, and Bell, yet none of these releases revived his earlier sales momentum despite strong performances. “Handy Man” nevertheless endured as a perennial favorite, with Del Shannon and James Taylor both scoring notable hits via their own renditions. In 2002, capitalizing on Jones’ ongoing appeal within Britain’s Northern soul scene, Castle/Sanctuary released the two-disc retrospective Good Timin’: The Anthology.