by Lou Carlozo February 8, 2001

Chicago Tribune

Ask Fernando Jones about the genesis of his long-running play "I Was There When the Blues Was Red Hot," and he'll take you back -- way back -- to the start of his love affair with the genre. Jones remembers picking up the guitar and hanging out at fabled clubs like the Checkerboard Lounge at an age when most kids were just learning how to read and write.

For Jones (a self-described bandleader, guitarist, vocalist and educator), there is no separating blues from life. That may explain why he stuck with his play through countless rejections from theater companies and shows when only one person sat in the audience. "I surely have to be a blues man with all I've been through," Jones said.

Fortunately for blues fans, Jones, 36, never gave up on his self-styled musical drama, which features a live band anchored by the playwright himself. A mainstay at Gerri's Palm Tavern since it opened in the fall of 1998, "I Was There" has been performed 230 times -- an impressive feat considering that it was Jones' first stab at playwriting, completed in one feverish weekend of inspiration.

Along the way, "I Was There," the story of a blues musician who sells out and pays a high price for that, has attracted a loyal and growing following of blues fans black and white, South Side and North Side. "Everybody loves the blues," Jones said. "Could you imagine if this play was at the Goodman Theatre? It would never stop running."

In the meantime, Jones says he is content to continue staging the play at Gerri's, the 47th Street landmark that in its heyday was frequented by Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Quincy Jones, to name a few musical luminaries.

"As long as God gives me the mental strength, the physical strength and the freedom from greed, it will run my entire life," Jones said. "If I live into my 80s, or it can only run four or six weeks a year, it will run. This is a live piece."