Jacqueline Jones: 1968 - 2019

Jacqueline Jones: 1968 - 2019

Sad news of another beloved rustie soul Jacqueline Jones who passed away in May.

From her husband Barney:

Friends, it is with a heavy heart and with tears streaming down our cheeks that we are letting you know that after a cruelly short illness, our wonderful, unique Jacqueline Jones left us this morning, just as dawn was breaking over the Ile de France.

The end came very peacefully. Jac was surrounded by her family. We held her hand and kissed her cheek and, as she had always wanted, played The Low Anthem song "Charlie Darwin". Her breathing eased and she slipped away.

Her family is devastated. I have lost my love, the person who kicked me around and got me to do all manner of things that I might never have done - move to Greece for 5 years, move to France, buy a house, go to festivals, you name it, Jac drove it.

For Syd and Nat, well they have lost a mother who, I suspect, was unlike most other mothers they came across. She was stroppy and rebellious and took them to gigs and had batty friends but she was also tender and loving and washed their socks and cooked their meals and made them laugh. A lot.

For all of us, she was also inspiring. Jacqueline left school at 16 and went to drama school. She had no O Levels but that didn't stop her from recently starting an Open University Psychology course. She was on track to complete her second module with flying colours when the illness struck.

She loved city life - especially London, Athens and Paris - and would drag us to gigs and exhibitons and bars. If either of the kids heads into music it will partly be down to the push she gave them.

But in recent years Jonesy found a true love of the wilds. She had started paddle-boarding on the Seine, running with Doggo and was getting more enthusiastic about mountain walking.

She grew up in Pembrokeshire in Wales and was in the process of rediscovering the beauty of her roots. Two years ago, she made us all go camping in Snowdonia - it poured with rain and we nearly got blown into the Irish Sea but it was glorious - and she loved climbing Cader Idris with her brother Owen.

Just eight weeks ago Jac was walking in the Preseli Mountains with her dad in Pembrokeshire.

A week later she went into hospital where they discovered a tumour on her brain.

It was the same thing that struck down her mother Valerie just under a year ago.

She went through the biopsy and was due to start radiotherapy this afternoon. Sadly, the tumour was too strong and just seven short weeks after taking her to hospital with a severe headache we have lost her.

I was glad that we could give Jac some music to ease her passage this morning. Music was her passion. She loved Leonard Cohen - in fact early in our courtship she confided that if Leonard ever came on to her then I would be history! - and Neil Young especially but her taste was eclectic and she was always finding new artists. Over the years she dragged us to so many gigs and festivals.

She could also sing. Boy could she sing. Like the best of the Welsh. It was her oxygen. When she was stressed she would tuck herself away and sing. I always knew when she had been singing because she would emerge from the cellar where she had privacy absolutely beaming.

As one of our friends said: "Les anges vont être jaloux de sa voix - the angels will be jealous of her voice."

Jac had recently started writing songs again and was plannning to make an album. That won't happen now but I will try to dig out her songs. Perhaps she knows enough musicians who can take her words and set them down - perhaps then she will have her album.

For those of you who knew her, you were very lucky. Please hold on to a small part of her memory and carry it with you, even if it is just one of her caustic, funny one-liners.

For my part, I was the luckiest. To spend so much time with her over the years, to bring up children, travel and live in different countries, argue and fight and love and cherish has been a privilege.

Jacqueline Jones will remain with me until it is my turn to take the long walk.

Until we meet again, my love.

---

Heartfelt words Barney and deepest sympathies to you and your family.

Our memories of Jackie are as follows from Paris in 2013. Jackie was an unforgettable human that we're truly blessed to have crossed paths with on a very hot June night in Paris...


A Rustie Trifecta
Ralph Molina's drumstick & Neil Young's towel & guitar pic
2013 Paris concert of Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Photo by Tour Manager Hounds That Howell
For those who attended the 2013 Paris concert of Neil Young & Crazy Horse, you know it was one their hottest gigs ever -- literally and figuratively.

Stage temperatures were approaching over 90 degrees Fahrenheit and Crazy Horse was on fire.

So hot that Neil played the end of the concert with an iced towel around his neck during an incendiary, deliriously furious "Rockin in the Free World" encore before tossing it into the audience in an attempt to cool things down.

To begin to describe the exhilaration in the moments after the lights came up as all the rusties raced to the center rail to share stories, we collided with all of our new and old rustie friends. For us -- with a Ralph Molina's drumstick in one hand and a guitar pic played by Neil Young on Ol Black in our pocket -- our vibrational energy was off the charts into stratospheric levels of euphoria.

But then something truly magically happened.

Up comes our newest Neil rusty friend Jacqueline clutching the cherished iced towel that Neil had tossed into the crowd. Still cool and wet, rusties gathered to touch, feel and cool down collectively. And then we all hugged.

Never before has our body and soul ever experienced so much vibrational love energy. It flowed. It exploded. it raced thru our veins with a shot to the heart.

It was as if the energy of Ralph's drumming, Billy's pounding bass, Poncho's chunky chords, Neil's love and Jackie's rustie passion hit us all at once like a lightening bolt from the heaven's above. A magic jolt ... if you will.

It was truly a love and only love moment.

Tomorrow is a long long time if you're a memory
Trying to find peace of mind
Spirit come back to me,
Give me strength and set me free
Let me hear the magic in my heart.

Past, Present & Future
The Alchemy Boys in all of their ragged glory splendor
(Jackie on rail in front of Neil)
too late, too soon, she sleeps with angels...

(Thanks for assistance HtH!)

---

---