Jill Jones

Jill Jones is an American singer, songwriter, and actress born on July 11, 1962, in Lebanon, Ohio. Her mother, a fashion model of African American heritage, and her father, an Italian jazz drummer, shaped a multicultural upbringing that Jones spent largely with her grandparents before relocating to Los Angeles after her mother remarried. Jones appeared on Broadway between 1982 and 1986, with credits including Amadeus and Doubles.

Jones entered the music industry at fifteen as a backup vocalist for Teena Marie, whose career was managed by Jones's mother. During her time with Teena Marie, she contributed backing vocals to several of the artist's Motown albums in the early 1980s and co-wrote two songs: "Young Girl In Love," featured on Lady T (1980), and "The Ballad of Cradle Rob and Me," from It Must Be Magic (1981). In 1980, at age eighteen, Jones met Prince when Teena Marie served as the opening act on his Dirty Mind tour.

Two years later, Prince invited Jones to Sunset Sound recording studios to contribute backing vocals to several tracks on his 1999 album, where she was credited under the initials J.J. She appeared in music videos for "1999," "Little Red Corvette," and an extended version of "Automatic," and subsequently joined the 1999 tour, singing backing vocals alongside the Prince side-project Vanity 6. Following the tour, Jones relocated to Minneapolis and became Prince's on-and-off girlfriend. She also contributed backing vocals for Apollonia 6 and is featured in the unreleased Vanity 6 recording "Vibrator." Prince's 1985 B-side "She's Always in My Hair," the flip side to "Raspberry Beret," was written about Jones. She appeared in a small role as a waitress in the 1984 film Purple Rain and returned for a scene in the 1990 sequel Graffiti Bridge.

Jones recorded the Prince-written single "G-Spot," which was remixed for a twelve-inch release by Blondie's Jimmy Destri. Her self-titled debut album, released in 1987 on Prince's Paisley Park Records, featured Prince as a credited co-writer, though he wrote all of the songs himself. The lead single "Mia Bocca" reached number six on the Italian charts in July 1987. The album received positive critical notices upon release but did not achieve commercial success and had been out of print for many years as of 2007. In the late 1980s, Jones recorded numerous demo tracks in London, among them "Deep Kiss," "Unattainable Love," "Long Time," "Red," "White Dogs," and "Tango." In 1989, she contributed the song "The Ground You Walk On" to the soundtrack of the film Earth Girls Are Easy. Several demos were completed for a second Paisley Park album, and a video was filmed for the track "Boom Boom," but no album was released.

Jones sang lead vocals on Japanese artist Ryuichi Sakamoto's single "You Do Me," from his 1990 album Beauty, and wrote and co-produced "The Great Pretender" for Lisa Lisa. In 1993, she released the dance single "Bald" on Flying Records. She served as lead vocalist for the band Baby Mother, which recorded an album for London Records in 1995 that was never released. In 1996, Jones toured performing co-lead vocals with Chic alongside Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards, and her contributions can be heard on the 1999 live release Live at the Budokan.

Jones provided vocals on a cover of Carly Simon's "Why" for Ronny Jordan's 2000 album A Brighter Day and recorded a cover of Blondie's "Call Me" for a Giorgio Moroder tribute album, which was subsequently issued as a single with remixes by Todd Terry and Mantronix. Her second album, Two, was released in 2001 with instrumentalist Chris Bruce, with assistance from former Paisley Park photographer David Honl. She sang lead vocals on the 2004 album Wasted, credited to The Grand Royals featuring Jill Jones. A collaboration with dance outfit Funky Junction produced the single "Someone to Jump Up," which appeared on several Hedkandi compilation releases. In 2009, Jones released "Living for the Weekend" on the Peace Bisquit label. The single "This Is How It Feels," recorded with Italian techno act Get Far, appeared in 2014, followed by "Forbidden Love" in 2015. Her most recent album, I Am, was released in February 2016 on Peace Bisquit.