The Story of the Hit Song Mr Jones: The Way Counting Crows Produced Their Signature Song

Adam Duritz Recalls the Beginnings

Our first albums were primarily recorded in houses located in the foothills above Los Angeles. August and Everything After marked a major milestone for the group, as it was their first release on a large record company. Each member received an upfront payment of $3,000; I used mine to buy a classic red convertible and drove it to LA.

Every morning, my routine included by listening to a Poco track, which resembles the Beatles venturing into American folk. Also, I was into a Benny Goodman album that my father had acquired as a free giveaway at a Texaco station during my childhood.

The song Mr Jones was included on a demo tape that we sent to labels, but it was a challenging song to complete. We didn’t have a solid grasp at first. It’s not a leisurely tune or a straight ahead number; rather, it gallops along, demanding a real feel to perform. It’s soul music – closer to the Memphis soul sound than folk.

Our drummer couldn’t hear the song as the rest of us did – so T Bone enlisted one of his idols to perform on it.

We considered a few production candidates, but when I discussed things with T Bone Burnett, he really get where the band was at. We had a lot of promise, but I didn’t like with our sound – we hadn’t learned how to work together. Eliminated all the synths and guitar effects. The drummer had trouble with the tempo, so T Bone invited Denny Fongheiser, one of Steve’s heroes, to play on it. It’s a funny story, but it was hard on Steve back then.

My best friend Marty and I had played in bands together prior to Counting Crows. His father, a flamenco musician, had made it in Spain and was back in the Bay Area performing a tour. Attended one of his shows and hung out with the musicians bar-hopping. The next morning, I went home and wrote Mr Jones. The lyrics reflect our experience that night, wishing we were cool musicians so we could talk to the girls more confidently.

I believe, it’s one of the best pieces I’ve composed. We performed another track on Saturday Night Live in 1994, the record climbed dozens of positions weekly for five or six weeks. Afterwards, the song became a major success.

David Immerglück Shares His Memories

In the late 1980s, Adam, David Bryson, and I were living together in a industrial building in Berkeley. I had been playing with another band and was in an offshoot band named Monks of Doom.

One evening, I found Adam with a fresh recording he’d created with Bryson. I heard this track called the now-famous tune. It was done with a basic drum machine that resembled a video game or popcorn popping, but his singing were on another level.

Once T Bone got involved, it was a total reinvention of Counting Crows. They shifted back to basics influenced by folk and soul legends.

Adam called me saying, “Hey, man, can you come down and contribute to this record?” By the time I got there, T Bone had moved us to a studio in Encino, Los Angeles – formerly used by a Jackson 5 member. There were instruments that Dylan had recently used.

He told me to play my guitar slightly behind the beat. He said, “Playing too fast before the drums comes off like an adolescent hurrying.” He has a southern accent, and his advice was to visualize relaxing on the mixing board and staying casual while playing.

The band was, in some ways, a reaction to grunge. The tragic end of Cobain felt like the culmination. At the time, many used heroin. The goal was obliteration, not enlightenment. The nihilism had reached an extreme, and the trend shifted toward something emotional and sincere. Their music combined acoustic and electric with a strong influence of Van Morrison soul.

The song never gets old. On stage, when I am rocking out with the singer, I remember that moment when he first shared the demo. It’s insane.