Jack Jones, Balladeer Famous for ‘Love Boat’ Theme and 1960s Hits Like ‘The Impossible Dream,’ Dies at 86

Jack Jones, a singer who discovered fame and chart success on the easy-listening facet of the road within the Nineteen Sixties, and who later turned etched in television-watching America’s psyche with the “Love Boat” theme, died Wednesday at 86.

Jones died of leukemia at a hospital in Rancho Mirage, Calif., his spouse of 15 years, Eleanora Jones, mentioned.

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Jones had hits on Billboard’s Scorching 100 chart, however his highest chart numbers may very well be discovered on what was then referred to as the simple listening chart, which later turned grownup up to date. Within the straightforward listening format, he had No. 1 singles with “The Race is On” in 1965, “The Unattainable Dream (The Quest)” in 1966 and “Woman” in 1967.

Specifically, “The Unattainable Dream” — a canopy of the preferred track from the 1965 Broadway musical “Man of La Mancha” — turned culturally ubiquitous, via Jones’ frequent TV appearances, despite the fact that it peaked at No. 35 on the Scorching 100, the place it needed to compete towards extra clearly youthful fare. Because it continued to be a staple of his reside performances over the a long time, Stephen Holden of the New York Occasions wrote that his rendition of what had turn out to be a regular “transforms this sentimental battle horse into an anthem of non-public willpower, not solely to maintain shifting, however to get higher.”

The “Love Boat” theme was heard by hundreds of thousands of People each week throughout that present’s 1977-86 run on ABC. Jones spoofed the track’s old style attraction — and his personal — by singing it in a cameo as a lounge singer within the 1982 comedy “Airplane II.”

Even within the ’60s, Jones’ attraction was seen as old-school — which helped endear him to an America that was not but able to utterly commerce the Frank Sinatra wing of pop music for the British Invasion, and to producers of TV selection exhibits who understood {that a} Jones look supplied a sort of consolation meals for audiences as occasions and types modified.

His songs may nonetheless be used within the current day to evoke an period — as when “Mad Males” used “Lollipops and Roses” as an end-credits theme.

However his attraction was not all about nostalgia, or kitsch — Jones was revered by college students of the so-called crooner period. Reviewing him within the Wall Road Journal in 2012, classic-vocalist knowledgeable Will Friedwald wrote, “It isn’t the pure energy of his voice that’s most spectacular. It’s the sensitivity with which he animates a lyric, a sensitivity that solely will increase with age.”

“As my profession gained momentum,” Jones mentioned, “I developed a deep appreciation for well-constructed songs with emotional attraction. I used to be influenced by the good balladeers — Sammy Cahn, Jimmy Van Heusen, Cole Porter, the Gershwins, Harold Arlen, Michel LeGrand, and Alan and Marilyn Bergman, in addition to instrumentalists together with Gerry Mulligan, Buddy Wealthy and Depend Basie.”

Jones thought-about himself an actor as a lot as singer, though he didn’t pursue the display as ardently as he did recordings. His movies embrace a pre-stardom look within the 1959 musical “Juke Field Rhythm” and a number one function in a 1978 slasher movie, “The Comeback,” during which he performed a singer suffering from a killer. Extra usually he was seen on the touring musical-theater circuit, doing exhibits like “Guys and Dolls,” “The Pajama Recreation” and — after all — “Man of La Mancha.” He had a cameo in David O. Russell’s “American Hustle” in 2013, singing the Cy Coleman quantity “I’ve Acquired Your Quantity.”

Jones was the son of actors Irene Harvey and Allen Jones, the latter of whom who appeared within the Marx Brothers movies “A Evening on the Opera” and “A Day on the Races.” “My father hit precise film stardom in 1938, and that was as a result of Jeanette McDonald and Nelson Eddy had been collectively a lot that MGM determined they wished to interrupt them up somewhat bit (and never) have Nelson Eddy in (a movie),” Jones recounted. “They introduced my father in, and it was known as ‘The Firefly.’ The track, ‘Donkey Serenade,’ that was in that image turned an amazing hit… He recorded it the evening that I used to be born in 1938. You’re taking to a fossil,” Jones quipped.

Jones was briefly a part of a household act together with his mother and father. He attended College Excessive College in West Los Angeles, the place his buddy Nancy Sinatra is alleged to have invited her father to sing within the college auditorium, so impressing Jones that he decided to observe in Frank Sinatra’s footsteps.

His first recording efforts within the late Nineteen Fifties included a stint recording rockabilly-styled songs for Capitol Information, an strategy he mentioned was compelled on him. A subsequent affiliation with Kapp Information led to “Lollipops and Roses” — recorded whereas he was on depart from the U.S. Air Drive Reserve — establishing his profession. Though it solely reached No. 6 on the simple listening chart and No. 66 on the Scorching 100, the track had endurance and gained him a 1962 Grammy for greatest male solo vocal efficiency.

His second Grammy got here in the identical class in 1964 for “Wives and Lovers,” a future customary written by the hit group of Burt Bacharach and Hal David. It was additionally nominated for, however misplaced, the report of the 12 months competitors. “Wives and Lovers” peaked at No. 9 on the simple listening chart, however maybe tellingly in regard to its reputation, it marked his excessive level on the Scorching 100, making it to No. 14. Though the track was accused by a few of having sexist lyrics, it continues to take pleasure in reputation at present amongst jazz singers like Cécile McLorin Salvant.

The final of Jones’ 4 Grammy nominations got here in 1998 within the conventional pop vocal efficiency class for his album “Jack Jones Paints a Tribute to Tony Bennett.” Altogether, Jones launched 60 albums.

Jones stored up his clean tone over the a long time, and credited one resolution particularly for that longevity. “If I hadn’t stopped smoking about 40 years in the past, I wouldn’t be singing, not to mention being alive,” he mentioned in a 2016 interview with journal. “It’s the worst factor you are able to do to your voice, so I’m very grateful that no matter it was that made me wish to give up, that I went via with it.”

Reviewing a Jones efficiency on the Algonquin Lodge in 2008, the Occasions’ Holden famous, “Mr. Jones has a wholesome humorousness. Reflecting on the ‘Love Boat Theme,’ he joked that he had manufactured from hundreds of thousands of {dollars} by threatening to sing it. Then he did. It wasn’t so dangerous.” However Holden had larger reward for his different materials. “His weathered voice is stuffed with seams and crevices. It’s the voice of a gentleman rancher astride a horse, surveying his property in a tv western,” the Occasions wrote. “It’s mentioned that as we age, we turn out to be an increasing number of ourselves. And the mature Jack Jones has refined a mode that would by no means be known as cookie-cutter… His world-weary cragginess coincides with an impulse to take ballads at extraordinarily sluggish tempos and to execute them with the hesitations, drawn-out notes and sudden leaps which can be a trademark of the jazz singer Mark Murphy. As a result of the decrease finish of Mr. Jones’s voice has deepened, his sudden flights right into a quasi-falsetto are extra dramatic than ever. At occasions they counsel the spontaneous eruptions of a refined stylist impatiently throwing warning to the wind.”

In his later years, Jones was a proponent of dwelling within the Coachella Valley. “I like the palm timber, the sand, the open feeling. There’s a lot serenity,” he mentioned.” I cherished being towards the mountains in Palm Springs as a youth, and nonetheless benefit from the altering colours of the mountains. Now we have the very best of all worlds right here.”

Jones was bestowed in 2003 with a star on the Palm Springs Stroll of Stars, becoming a member of the star he had gotten in 1989 on the Hollywood Stroll of Fame.

Earlier than wedding ceremony Eleanora Jung in 2009, Jones was married and divorced 5 occasions, together with a union with actress Jill St. John.

Moreover Jones’ spouse, his survivors embrace daughters Crystal Jones and Nicole Ramasco, stepdaughters Nicole Whitty and Colette Peters, and three grandchildren.

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