23 Jun 2018

Live Session: another side of Paul Ubana Jones

From RNZ Music, 1:10 pm on 23 June 2018

Paul Ubana Jones is one of New Zealands most loved and revered musicians with a career spanning 45 years. The virtuoso guitarist sits down for a live session to share something old and something new.

Paul Ubana

Paul Ubana Photo: Supplied

Very few musicians in New Zealand subsist solely on their craft, yet Paul Ubana Jones has carved a career spanning 45 years and shows no sign of slowing down.

“I’ve got some really loyal fans from Invercargill right up to Kerikeri. It’s never guaranteed but there are always turnouts, it still keeps me touring," he says.

“As you know, my wife and I do it all ourselves. She does all the art for posters and she’s very fluid on the computer and sorts stuff out for me.

“So I just get in that car with my equipment and a new set of strings on, and you try and touch as many souls as possible. It’s quite simplistic in that respect, it’s uncomplicated.”

In person, Paul is warm, direct, open and easy to like. It’s the personality of someone who has won over crowds their whole life.

Playing since the age of 11, he studied guitar, cello and composition in his birthplace, England and began to forge his own contemporary style, influenced by blues, rock, folk and jazz.

The musician we hear today is a true virtuoso. His style is idiosyncratic and transcends genre.

When you hear Paul play, you know it’s Paul although he never plays the same thing twice.

“Someone may see me play and then see me a week later and say ‘Hey, you played a few songs that were the same but they weren’t the same’. I like that."

“It’s how you can mould and paint your textures on that listening canvas. Freshness. New material. As much as you can.

“You’ve got to deliver this thing on your own. I don’t have a bass player or a drummer but that’s my choice because I believe my right hand and my dexterity can hold down a good two or three-hour show. And it seemingly has done.”

Paul has lived in New Zealand since 1987 when he moved here with his wife.

He has raised four children and when he’s not on the road he enjoys life on a rural property south of Christchurch.

When pressed about the dangers of so much touring, being away from family and managing his own career he opens up without self-aggrandisation.

“It’s less than a step away sometimes. And other times, when you come on the road after you’ve had a good ship-shape cleanup, a psychic and spiritual cleanup, then it’s more than a step away.

“Things like this know when you’re weak. I can battle with alcohol quite easily. Consumption. A physique that can easily put on weight and has done. And knowing full well I have to drive a lot which keeps me in form and from falling down that well totally. There’s always something that’s just in a closet and it’s not fully shut. For me, fortunately, it’s only that one major thing so I have to be very careful there.

“I mean I’ve made some real massive boo-boos. But fortunately, over a 45-year career, I can count them on one hand. One of the recent ones was in New Zealand when I was on tour doing The Band 40th anniversary tribute last November.

“I got totally sledded on single-malt whiskey and went on stage and thought I was Roger Daltrey, swung the microphone around up in the air thinking I could catch it and bang. I didn’t. I dropped it on full volume. So I was in the doghouse there. I learnt my lesson there.

“It was a shocker and I hadn’t done that kind of thing for years. And when I had done it before I was on my own but I let down a lot of people. I made a public apology the next morning in a hotel lobby. The Wellington gig was better and the Auckland gig was miles better. It was only three shows but hey, I blew that first one. You make your mistakes and you have to face up to them. I’m 66 and I still F up.”

With such a vast musical knowledge and experience he takes time in between shows to visit schools around the country, conducting songwriting workshops with high school students and he has a lot to offer the next generation.

“They’re scared to try and get out there on a wing and make a living from music themselves, so all you can really do is enthuse and say it’s all possible if you go for it.

“Teaching them to find their own voice and diversify. Not to become subservient to the trends of the day to get on FM radio or whatever. Be yourself, it might be way out and pretty strange stuff but if that’s who you are then that’s what you walk with and I think that’s really important.”

Related links:

Paul Ubana Jones on NZ Live (July 2016)
Playing Favourites with Paul Ubana Jones (February 2013)
Feature interview with Paul Ubana Jones (2014)

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