Okay, it’s not a country song but let’s be honest and say any music fan who doesn’t like “Mr. Jones” probably shouldn’t have their opinions taken all that seriously.
The Counting Crows were one of the biggest bands of the 90’s. Songs such as “Hanginaround”, “Big Yellow Taxi” (a Joni Mitchell cover), and “Round Here” form a large piece of the 90’s rock canon (also let’s not forget the iconic Shrek song “Accidentally In Love”) but one song in particular will forever stand out, at least to me: “Mr. Jones”.
“Mr. Jones” was released on their debut album, August and Everything After, and immediately became a huge hit, leading to the album selling over 7 million copies. The song has over 866 million streams on Spotify and continues to get a lot of radio play today. It peaked at number 5 on the US Billboard Hot 100 Airplay chart.
While you’d imagine that the entire group would have fond memories of creating such an iconic single, it turns out that’s far from the truth.
Lead singer and co-writer Adam Duritz struggled to get a good take of the vocals, claiming he sang the song around 100 times before being happy with his performance. But he at least liked the song, despite how difficult it was for him to perform. Their drummer, Steve Bowman, didn’t like it…
In fact, he hated it. And why was that? He thought it was a country song, a genre he was apparently no fan of…
Duritz recalled this in a recent interview with Rick Beato:
“Oh I remember a lot about what a pain in the ass that song was… Our drummer hated the song. Just hated it. He said he “didn’t sign up to play country music… I might as well wear a straw hat and stick a blade of grass in my mouth playing this f***ing thing.” And I was like “This is not a country song. At all. It’s only a country song cause you’re making it sound like a country song!”
He just hated the song and it made it really hard to play because he could just not get a feel for it. He just kept saying it was country and we’re all like, to be it’s like a soul song, but whatever it is there’s a way to play it and it made it so hard to sing over it…
He just had it in his head that it was a country song. I could never understand why he felt that way but thinking that way he played it that way and it ruined it, over and over again.”
I will say I’d love to hear “Mr. Jones” as a country song… Toss a little steel and a banjo solo in? Please and thank you.
Well, eventually they had to call an audible and sub out Bowman for another drummer because it made no sense to keep bashing their heads against a wall.
“We finally came to the studio one day, [producer] T-Bone’s talking to this guy in a room, this guy’s playing drums. Steve goes “Oh my God! That’s f***ing Denny Fongheiser. He’s the greatest f***ing drummer.” … T-Bone’s like “Steve, this is Denny Fongheiser.” Steve’s like “Man, I’m such a big fan I really love you… What are you doing here?”
T-Bone says “Well, Steve, I got to feeling bad the other day cause I’m always browbeating you about “Mr. Jones” and who am I to be telling you what you have to play… So I’ve got Denny to come in and he’s gonna play drums on Mr. Jones, that way you don’t have too!” …
It was sh*tty, it was a mean way to do it… It was brutal but then Denny like in two takes nailed the song”
Sometimes we all need a bit of tough love to get us where we want to be…
Had to be tough for Bowman to sit there and watch an idol of his come in and immediately do what he wasn’t able to but it seems like all was fine in the long run, though Bowman did leave the band in 1994, a year after the album came out.
We were so close to having “Mr. Jones” be a country song… though from the sounds of it it wouldn’t have been nearly as good as the version we all know and love today, so maybe it’s best that they didn’t toss on a straw hat…
You can listen to the entire interview here, the “Mr. Jones” part starts at the 39:10 mark:
Cue it up:
