Carlos Jones and the P.L.U.S. Band
Reviewed by Greg Cielec
We are in the middle of the best spring in years, and that means summer isn’t too far away. And one of the best things about summer here in Northern Ohio is seeing Carlos Jones and the P.L.U.S. Band play somewhere. Whether it’s an afternoon at Whiskey Island or a street festival, Jones and his band will have the audience up and dancing and moving to what he calls his brand of American Reggae.
He has been doing this for thirty years, and hopefully he will keep doing it for another thirty.
Late last year Jones and his band released a four song disk titled Positive Vibrations. The only negative about the disk is that it is too short with only four cuts, all of them very good. Jones is right in calling his music American reggae because it not only contains elements of traditional reggae but almost every genre of American roots music, including but not limited to funk, Motown, jazz and calypso. Amongst the tracks are a cover of Bob Marley’s “Mellow Mood,” and a Jones original “Apartment Living.” The songs all feature Jones’ signature sound of percussion and guitars, with two of the tracks having a horn section that really jumps. Jones’ vocals remind me a lot of New York artist Garland Jeffries, who put out a great album last year, The King of In Between, which featured the single “Roller Coaster Town.” This disk is just as good.
Next time you see the P.L.U.S. Band perform, pick up a copy of Positive Vibrations so you can take a little bit of them home with you.
Visit Carlos Jones and the P.L.U.S. Band online at http://CarlosJones.com. And be sure to snag a copy of Positive Vibrations – 2011 Little Fish Records.
Greg Cielec is a local writer who covers mostly music and sports for a variety of publications and websites. He is also a full time English and creative writing teacher at Streetsboro High School; an adjunct professor at BGSU Firelands College and Lakeland Community College; and a football coach at John Carroll University.He has published two books of fiction, My Cleveland Story (1998) and Home and Away Games (2006), and the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s Michael Heaton has called him “the Mark Twain of Cleveland.” Check out his website and blog at http://www.GregCielec.com.