In a wonderful preview of Lloyd Jones‘ upcoming San Juan Islands Fair performance, the San Juan Journal shares a wonderful story of Lloyd Jones making an impact all halfway across the world in Denmark:

“When a band halfway around the world listens to all your music, learns all your songs, and then prepares itself just for you, the artist, to drop by, plug in and let loose on a foreign audience, one might think you’ve reached a point where you can rest on your laurels and ease back on the throttle a bit.

Well, Lloyd Jones knows better, but he isn’t taking it for granted either.

“I was invited over there by this band that has the same instrumentation as mine – with two horns – and they said they had learned all my stuff,” said Jones, who last year traveled twice to Denmark to play with a group of musically accomplished strangers; he plans to return in October. “And you know what, they did. It all just worked out so well.”

From his hometown of Portland, Ore., Jones has been spinning straw into musical gold for the better part of 30 years. He and his band, The Lloyd Jones Struggle, first lit up the Main Stage of the San Juan County Fair back in 2001, another gig in which those in that audience may recall “worked out” pretty darn fantastically, too.

This time around, Jones is headed back to the fair, along with his band, with more fuel in the tank, a bit of a chip on his shoulder and a new recording in tow, 2011’s “Doin’ What It Takes” (Reference Records), which, in a phrase, pretty much sums up the course that even a 10-time winner of the Cascade Blues Association’s “Best R & B Act”and 2007 inductee into the Oregon Music Hall of Fame must follow to keep an acclaimed musical career on track, while banging’ out rhythm and blues in the age of I-tunes and the Internet…” — San Juan Journal

Read the full story on SanJuanJournal.com

Listen to “Bend in the River” on RRradio:

Purchase Doin’ What It Takes from ReferenceRecordings.com Today!