Janie Jones

Janie Jones was the real-life inspiration for the song of the same name on <a href="spotify:artist:3RGLhK1IP9jnYFH4BRFJBS">the Clash's</a> first album, though few of the group's American fans ever learned the full story behind this British weirdo. A mid-'60s cabaret performer with more of a snarl than a voice, she was more renowned in London for her parties than her music, and gained some of her biggest headlines in 1964 by attending a film premiere in a topless gown. She had a small U.K. hit single (#46) in 1965 with the Halloweenish novelty "Witches Brew," and issued several other 45s in the 1960s that, with their burlesque camp, were a lot closer in spirit to <a href="spotify:artist:1aiPGAbZSHYGO0nyrpUnAU">Mae West</a> than the swinging '60s. When she tried to play it straighter with songs by the likes of <a href="spotify:artist:0YJUdunUDA1pTDxJ8AJlyB">Jimmy Webb</a> and British hit songwriters Carter/Lewis, her vocal shortcomings were all too apparent. She remained on the fringes of the public eye with a marriage to songwriter John Christian Dee (author of <a href="spotify:artist:5U16QlMnlSAhkQxBZpLyLO">the Pretty Things'</a> great early British Invasion raunch classic "Don't Bring Me Down"), but didn't really hit the papers until a seven-year prison sentence in 1973 on a charge of controlling prostitutes. After her release from jail in 1977, she got <a href="spotify:artist:2A09V0kHlETOFfT8Hz8oba">Joe Strummer</a> to write a song for her, "House of the Ju-Ju Queen," which she recorded with <a href="spotify:artist:3RGLhK1IP9jnYFH4BRFJBS">the Clash</a> in the studio; it was released on a 1983 single credited to Janie Jones and the Lash. She published her memoirs, The Devil and Miss Jones, in 1993. ~ Richie Unterberger, Rovi