Carlos Jones & The PLUS Band

The cabaret at Tangier in Akron is skanking.
It's the Saturday after Thanksgiving and although the venue isn't packed, the dance floor is, as a group of women and a few unself-conscious guys sway, spin and undulate to the steady, syncopated grooves emanating from the stage. On that stage is Carlos Jones and the Peace Love Unity Syndicate, better known as the P.L.U.S. Band, doing what they do best and what Jones has made his life's work: bringing the peaceful vibe of reggae music to the people.
The day after Christmas, Jones will headline his third annual Holiday Revival at the House of Blues Cleveland. Opening will be hip-hop/R&B band Ghetto Wisdom, featuring Mike Calhoun, guitarist for the Dazz Band. For many, Jones is the undisputed king of Ohio reggae, with nearly 30 years of music making under his dreadlocks. Since the late '70s, Jones has dedicated his life to spreading reggae's message of peace, love and unity and the healing power of music to the people.
The Virginia native and Army brat, who is 48, moved to Cleveland in the '60s, listening to classic Motown and R&B and gospel music in his grandfather's church before discovering the Beatles.After his older brother introduced him to Bob Marley's Natty Dread album in the early '70s, Jones went to see the rising star at Cleveland's Music Hall in 1978 and he had an epiphany.
``That really set me on fire. The place was packed, everybody on their feet. The smoke was in the air like a haze and you look on stage and there's this bright colorful, pulsating living organism. ``He was living and breathing like a dragon and the vibe in the air was electrically charged and there's this little guy (Marley) in the middle of it all holding everything in the palm of his hand,'' said Jones, still awed 28 years later. ``Everyone was caught up in that one vibration. We were all one and how often do you feel that in a crowd of people?''
Shortly after that show, Jones' fashionable Afro transformed into the foundation of the sandy blond dreadlocks he wears today, and the budding percussionist hooked up with I-Tal, one of the earliest American reggae bands in the area not consisting of transplanted Jamaicans.
I-Tal toured the Midwest and released one self-titled album.
In 1984, Jones, a blossoming songwriter, and some of his fellow I-Tal members started the band First Light, which incorporated strains of rock and R&B into its grooves.
Like I-Tal, First Light built up a strong local following and released two albums, Meltdown in 1987 and Groove Telepathy in 1994. But despite the group's success, Jones desired to get back to a traditional roots/reggae sound and put together a small combo called Strictly Roots before expanding the group and dubbing it the Peace Love Unity Syndicate and ending First Light in 1998. Jones and the P.L.U.S. band released one album, Roots With Culture, in 2004, perform regularly all over Ohio and get enough steady work (their tour schedule has gigs booked through next March) so that music can be Jones' full-time job, allowing him to provide for his wife, Dori, and two daughters, Rachel, 20, and Soraya, 18.
Though Jones says he'd like to expand the group's touring circle, which reaches a little into Indiana, Pennsylvania and Michigan, he holds no illusions about ``making it.'' He is happy being the big fish in the relatively small Cleveland reggae pond. `It never was an objective of mine to be a star,'' he said. ``It's all about succeeding at translating that spirit and being able to bring it to other people. Not only to feel it yourself, but to share it.'' One group of people Jones would especially like to share with is the younger generation, who he says is growing up in a more insulated society in which iPods, DJs and MP3 blogs have replaced the live music experience.
Unlike the 1960s and '70s, he said, the bulk of pop music does not reflect what's actually going on in the world around them. Young people "use music as an escape from reality rather than a mirror,'' he said. "Music has a way of penetrating the consciousness in a way a lot of other artistic mediums don't. "Once people find themselves thinking about things that are truthful, it also brings with it a responsibility. Once you know something, you can't unknow it. With knowledge comes responsibility, and a lot of people don't want that responsibility. They'd rather have ignorance, because it's easier.''
Jones and his band provide smooth rhythms that get the body moving, but nestled between those grooves and calls for "one love'' and unity are such lyrics as "I see the marching soldiers over there/You tell them that they're fighting for their honor/Defending our freedom, and that they are all heroes, but you don't tell them that they are all disposable'' (from Marching Soldiers).
"A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down so you give them something that's healthy,'' he said. "They come and dance and they feel good and maybe they don't even know they're getting a message. But it has a way of penetrating, people pick up on it.''
Jones and the P.L.U.S. band are planning to record an album for release sometime in 2007, and with the advent of the Internet, Jones has been gaining new fans young and old in far-flung places, such as Australia, Turkey and Portugal. "It levels the playing field,'' Jones said of sites such as myspace and CDBaby. ``No longer do you have to be a slave and try and cater to the people at some record company. You eliminate the middleman and get right to the people.
"And when we talk about reggae music, it's the music of the people. It's the common people's music."
- Akron Beacon Journal