The Tail Dragger

Born James Yancy Jones in 1940 in Altheimer, Arkansas, Jones moved to Chicago in the '60's and quickly began to play with Howlin' Wolf and other West Side blues legends over more than a quarter century. The Chicago Reader's Monica Kendrick calls his music "the classic sound of Chicago in the 40s and 50s -- the sound of a generation that still remembered the south but was adapting rapidly to the cold rain and snow."


It was Howlin' Wolf who gave him the "Tail Dragger" moniker (due to his propensity to be a bit late to gigs.) -- before that, he was known as "Crawlin' James.

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