“Jacob’s brand of ...fueled, ..loomin’ country tunes (chased with rock and roll roots) makes for a raucous good time at his live show and supreme listening on his new self-released LP.”
- American songwriter

The album cover for Jacob Jones’ debut album Love And War shows a color faded, worn out old photograph pasted into a rustic, early twentieth centry scrapbook. The man on the front stands with guitar in hand, railroad tracks just behind him. The creased photograph is slightly blurry, perhaps taken in the early morning hours of what had just been a very long night. Those tracks behind him go somewhere. They disappear off into the distance, almost inviting you along for the journey the album is about to take you on. Love and War is the result of several such journeys Jacob Jones has taken. He’s invited you along for the ride. So the story begins.

Born in Crawfordsville, Indiana, Twenty five year old songwriter Jacob Jones became a traveler early in life. His parents moved to Louisville, Kentucky when he was 6 years old, then back to Indiana after only a couple short years. When he was 10 they finally settled in Conyers, GA. Jones, then in his teens and inspired by the music and lives of Johnny Cash, Townes Van Zandt, Bruce Springsteen and John Prine soon found himself moving around again, this time by choice and in search of something. After touring around with a few Georgia bands and doing some hard living in southern bars, a twenty-year-old Jones married his high school sweetheart and the two headed for New York City to start a new life together. The pressure of making ends meet in New York took its toll on the young couple and Jones soon found himself estranged from his wife and headed for divorce. It was during his stay in New York that Jones began writing music in earnest. His divorce and subsequent relationships fueled songs that would eventually end up on Love and War.

“I remember feeling the desolation of starting over once again in life, losing another love, maybe even THE love, or so i thought at the time,” says Jones of writing the album. “ I guess my hope is that people who are in the dark might hear the music call out and provide a light house when the storm is raging.”

Recorded in Jones’ new home of Nashville, TN in the winter of 2009, Love and War is an intimate time capsule, portraying the events of Jones’ past several years in cinematic musical form. Title track “Love and War” starts out with just an acoustic guitar at first but soon a string quintet thrashes along in the chorus like a dust bowl scene in a John Ford film. Like Springsteen or even contemporary Ryan Adams, geography plays a big part in Jones’ narrative and scenery. “Rows of Dead Houses (Betty’s Song)” describes the feeling of returning home to Indiana for his grandmother’s funeral only to find that the town he once called home now felt like the farthest thing from it. Nashville’s influence on Jones’ music can be heard in the pedal steels, fiddle, banjo, dobro and upright bass that provide much of the accompaniment on the album.

On his first album, Jones hit the ground running, quite literally. He’s already recorded the follow up to Love and War to be released next year. In the meantime, he’ll be on the road once again this time touring the United States to promote Love and War. Those railroad tracks do lead somewhere. For Jones they have always led somewhere else. And for him, that just may be home.