Kelly Love Jones seems to be everywhere. Between releasing her album Surrender and popping up all over town with various high-profile appearances, she does it all with a genuine organic spirit of grace and connection. She’s been building her musical career, and it’s long overdue to go deeper with her story.

Jones stressed, “That childlike state—I want to live there forever. When I was a kid, I was always the one to ring your bell. ‘Hey, Jimmy, come play. I got the ball. Let’s start up the game in the middle of the street.’ I enjoy bringing people together. I want to play music. I want to have fun. Make people laugh. Ultimately, I have the ball, and I want to have that connection with people.’

This extends to how she rolled out her eighth album. Jones said, “Before I released Surrender locally on my birthday in July this year, I invited 10 people at a time to my house to have a listening session. Cut off all the lights, put blindfolds on people, and take a moment to listen. I did seven listening parties.”

Surrender is clearly the breakout release for Jones. Other than the stars aligning, she gives credit to a certain producer, who is also credited on the album cover. “There were a bunch of voice-recorded songs, demoed out randomly,” she recalled. “I didn’t have a sense of what they would be, but I knew I couldn’t lose the opportunity. I sent one randomly to Deezle like I always do. ‘Hey, dude, check this out, just sharing.’ He called me a couple days later. ‘What you wanna do?’ In an hour, he came with a portable studio. We did that song “I’m In Love” first at the house. It was amazing to watch, because as he’s recording, making the beat, and setting the tone, he’s thinking in his mind what sounds good. He is constantly building an arsenal of musicians as he’s meeting people. He has a great feel for that and knowing how to do it. He said, ‘I’ve always wanted to work with you—I’ll do whatever I can to help you out.’ Before we finished the album, I said, ‘I want you to be on the cover with me. You have given me so much.’ He’s like a big brother. Even back at St. James Major [Middle School], he was a year older, but he was looking out for me.”

As for the striking cover art, the multi-talented Jones herself is the artist. She explained, “I started freestyling, inspired by a painting and drew the woman with the guitar. I sat down one day and thought, ‘I need a cover. What about that picture I drew?’”

With arguably the first lyrical reference to Debbie Allen in “Dance With Me,” Jones said, “She definitely deserved the honor with all the amazing things she’s done. When I wrote the lyrics, I didn’t even intend to do it, but it says, ‘I’m no Debbie Allen, or even Fred Astaire. But I’ve been known to have sophisticated style. So, you can call me debonair.’ Unintentionally combining Debbie Allen and Fred Astaire.”

Kelly Love Jones is New Orleans through and through, with the blessing of a worldview that gives her a unique eye. She remembered, “I grew up in New Orleans East by the plaza [Lake Forest Plaza]. My parents played music a lot. My mother Patricia could sing. My sister could sing and did theater. When I was 17 years old, I went to a high school in Atlanta, Georgia. I moved in with my dad Bruce to finish my senior year. I met a group of people that were into hip hop music, so I really got into that. It’s my first love. We would be at the pep rallies banging on the benches, rapping and freestyling. That became my thing. I started my first group with them called Understatement. I didn’t want to write. I wanted to freestyle. I wanted to do more than rapping. I incorporated singing and playing an instrument with it.”

Family is essential to Jones. She lit up with, “Both of my parents have always been supportive. They come to every show. They talk to the fans and dance with me in the show.”

Not only was Sade her first major influence but also her first concert as a young adult. Jones realized in seeing Sade and Digable Planets at the same show, “This is what I want to do for the rest of my life.”

Jones composes her songs mainly on guitar. That came about through family as well. “I went to live with my Aunt Troy in St. Louis. She paid for me to have classical lessons and was very adamant. She would come into my room and say, ‘Show me what you learned today.’ Didn’t let me quit. She said, ‘This is what you want to do. I’m going to make sure you do it.’ I was finding heart and dedication. I think the first three songs I wrote played the same chord progression—C A G. I just changed the rhythm.”

As for visual art, she claims, “I never was an artist. My brother could draw anything. I always admired that. The Alchemist is my favorite book, and when I saw the cover, I was like, ‘Wow, that’s really cool with design. I would like to do something like that.”

Jones played talent shows in high school and in college at The Art Institute of Houston before returning to New Orleans. She said, “After I graduated with a videography degree, I started to study sound recording, how to do live setups, and so on. I worked at Storyville District, which was owned by Quint Davis who had partnered with Reggie Toussaint. It was one of the most high-up jazz clubs on Bourbon Street. I got a chance to meet people like Wanda Rouzan, Irma Thomas, and George Porter Jr. I was setting up those sounds, getting food in the back, and making sure they got their checks on time—building camaraderie.”

This led to her own advancement, as she noted, “There was a drummer by the name of James Alsanders who came up to me one day. ‘Hey, you rap, don’t you? I can tell. Come to my studio and let’s start making some songs.’ He was a UNO jazz student and had a band that played at Funky Butt. That was my first gig. He said, ‘Let’s do one song. Come every Thursday night.’ Then we started venturing out to all these other clubs. Did I have the best singing voice when I started? Absolutely not, but I had drive. George Porter Jr. started putting me on like, ‘Hey, Kelly, won’t you come open up for my band.’ It became this incredible thing. I was working with The Pinettes [The Original Pinettes Brass Band] at the time. We were trying to collaborate on different things.”

Jones has a growing number of career highlights. Among them was meeting Chaka Khan, who emphasized, “Never give up. I don’t care what anyone says.” Jones played the Jazz and Heritage Festival Acura Stage as a 2001 opener for headliner Lenny Kravitz. Her set at the first annual Black Americana Fest was one of the highlights of the day, which she recalled: “I went into the room where they were doing the singer-songwriter circle and felt the energy of the people. I said, ‘Oh, this is going to be fun.’

She was uniquely honored as a U.N. Messenger of Truth. How did that come about? Jones was clearly still humbled as she expressed, “A doctor called me one day and said, ‘Your music touches people, and I want the world to know it.’ He called back a couple months later. ‘Do you have a passport? I need you to get on a flight to Barcelona for a summit. Don’t worry about anything. Just get on the plane.’ I ended up sitting in a room with a powerful energy of musicians who want to make a difference with what they do.”

Jones is also known for her cajón playing. She explained the origin of it with, “I was living in Peru in 2006. I went out onto the street to walk around and started hearing this music. I finally found it. A woman was sitting on her cajón. I’d never seen anything like that before. I said, ‘I want to learn; teach me.’ She gave me her number, I went over to her house and started learning little by little. Then I started playing it when I came home.’

Jones has a clear affinity for the South and Central Americas. More recently she spent three weeks with Guitarras Guzman Hnos [Guzmán Hnos Guitars, manufacturers since 1948] in Costa Rica where she apprenticed to make her own guitar. She brightened when she remembers the process: “It was amazing to make wood pliable, the process of getting it wet, bending, and spraying. I bled inside that guitar. There’s nothing like playing something you built yourself.”

Jones is an adventurous soul, not only with physical travel but also traveling through the creative process. She admitted, “I love doing things that are scary and frighten me, things in front of people that may or may not work—but they always work.”

Though she is a pure people person, Jones’ favorite place is her Tremé home where she lives with her son Skye. She reflected, “My grandmother Helen came up in that house. It’s been in my family for over 70 years. My grandmother is an amazing storyteller. She could tell her story, you’d be laughing at the beginning, and crying by the end of it. She had that ability to extract something that she saw.”

Kelly Love Jones has lived and traveled enough to have perspective with a sense of place, her musical career, and how she interacts with others, musing: “When I travel, I always come back thinking there is no place like this place right here and the heart that it gave me.”

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