About this artist
Performing a spectral brand of music informed by vintage blues, folk, and Appalachian sounds, the Bones of J.R. Jones is a project from singer, guitarist, and songwriter Jonathon Linaberry. Linaberry was born in central New York State in 1982, and was introduced to making music when his mother signed him up for piano lessons when he was six. Linaberry also studied trombone for a while, but when he 14 he gave up on the piano and picked up the guitar. After completing high school, Linaberry moved to Brooklyn to study art and design education at the Pratt Institute. He soon became enamored of New York City’s punk rock scene, drawn by the raw passion of the music. But when he was 19, Linaberry became interested in acoustic blues and roots music after digging into some archival albums given to him by his parents. Linaberry spent a few years playing with the acoustic group the Feverfew and some other like-minded acts before he struck out on his own. Playing one-man band style, stomping out rhythm while picking guitar or banjo, Linaberry adopted the stage name the Bones of J.R. Jones. In 2012, Linaberry released the first Bones of J.R. Jones EP, The Wildness, and 2014 brought his first full-length album, Dark Was the Yearling. In April 2016, Linaberry released the ambitious second album from the Bones of J.R. Jones, Spirit's Furnace. ~ Mark Deming