Joe Jones

Joe Jones, the New Orleans R&B vocalist, earned his chief claim to fame via the 1960 novelty smash “You Talk Too Much.” His later trajectory carried him into production and publishing, where he became a driving presence in the struggle to secure performers’ entitlements.

Born in the Crescent City on August 12, 1926, Jones completed a World War II naval tour before enrolling at the Juilliard Conservatory of Music. Returning home, he first served as personal attendant to blues giant B.B. King, then moved up to pianist and arranger. He also backed Shirley & Lee on the road and eventually launched his own group, undeterred by limited vocal prowess. After several years on the French Quarter club circuit, he recorded “Will Call” for Capitol in 1954. A short-lived Herald release followed in 1957; the next year he joined New York’s Roulette roster to cut “You Talk Too Much,” a Reggie Hall composition rejected by Hall’s brother-in-law, Fats Domino. Roulette placed the master on hold, so Jones remade the track in 1960 for the local Ric label under a new Harold Battiste arrangement.

Once the single dominated New York airplay, Roulette obtained an injunction that forced Ric to withdraw its pressing; the song then surfaced on Roulette and climbed to the pop Top Five by September. Ric countered with Martha Nelson’s “I Don’t Talk Too Much,” but Jones’ own follow-up, “One Big Mouth,” missed, and apart from the modest 1961 entry “California Sun” he never returned to the charts. Receiving almost no payment for the hit, he relocated in frustration to New York and turned to production, steering the early careers of the Dixie Cups, famed for “Chapel of Love,” and R&B singer Alvin Robinson. In 1973 Jones moved to Los Angeles and started his own publishing company; he also campaigned for African-American R&B artists seeking to recover rights and royalties ceded during the formative years of the recording business.

Jones died in Los Angeles on November 27, 2005, at age 79, after quadruple bypass surgery.