All Photos: Alan Mercer Lighting: Eric V. Location: The Enchanted Manor
Everybody likes Randy Jones. Before we actually met, people who already knew him kept telling me how wonderful he is. They were right. The actor, author, American Music Award winner and multi-platinum recording artist, is the original Cowboy from the iconic group the 'Village People.' In his career that spans four decades now, he has sold over 100 million records. He is also the only group member who actually lives in the village.
They scored a number of disco and dance hits, including 'Macho Man,' 'Go West,' 'In The Navy,' and their biggest hit 'YMCA.' It's hard to find anyone older than five who doesn't know these songs today.
Their fame reached it's peak in 1979 when the Village People made several appearances on the Merv Griffin Show and appeared with Bob Hope to entertain U.S. troops. The group was also on the cover of 'Rolling Stone' magazine on April 19, 1979. In Septemeber of 2008 they recieved a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
After leaving the group and continuing a career as an actor and dancer, Randy has released solo CD's, most recently 'Ticket To The World,' in 2008. He performs internationally in his own solo concerts and has appeared ons tage in musicals and plays including 'Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,' 'Music Man,' 'Chicago,' 'Applause,' 'Camelot,' and '42nd Street' among many more.
Randy has gone on to be a full time working actor in motion pictures starring in 'Against The Wind' in which he portrays the 'American President,' 'The Gentleman,' 'Three Long Years,' 'My Guaranteed Student Loan,' and his debut 'Can't Stop The Music.'
He appears in various documentaries such as the History Channel's '70's FEVER!,' 'Roxy: The Last Dance,' 'Disco:SPinning the Story,' 'VH-1's RockDoc,' 'Behind The Music,' and others as a narrator and interview subject. He is featured in HBO's hit comedy series 'Flight of the Conchords,' as well as an upcoming pilot 'The Harmony' for here! TV. He is the author, along with Mark Bego, of 'Macho Man' a book published in January of 2009.
Randy Jones is one of those people who always has a smile on his face and he likes to bring joy to people everywhere. It would be hard to find a more good natured guy in show business. Eric Venturo and I met with Randy on his recent trip to
AM: Randy you have been around a long time now.
RJ: My involvement with Village People is in it's fourth decade. Before that I was working with Grace Jones.
AM: I didn't realize that. What else don't I know about your show business beginning?
RJ: I got a very good conservatory education in music, theater and dance from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston Salem and Chapel Hill . I'm actually a trained professional concert dancer in ballet and modern.
AM: What companies did you dance with?
RJ: I danced with Agnes DeMille, Pauline Koner, Paul Taylor and the second Alvin Ailey company and a bunch of dance companies but I realized you only get about twenty five weeks of work a year. The union minimum was only $250.00 a week. That was substantial for someone who was officially still in school.
AM: Was there any other drawbacks besides not enough work and money?
RJ: I was unable to use my voice if all I was doing was dancing.
AM: You knew you wanted to sing then?
RJ: Not only do I like to sing but I like to talk. For me the reason to sing songs is to use them as a vehicle to get myself out in front of large crowds of people. I like to sing the song and then talk with the audience and when I see their eyes start to glaze over then I know it's time to go to the next number. Half of what I do is talking, joking and entertaining.
AM: I like your latest album.
RJ: Thank you, I only sing songs where the words mean something to me. A lot of people think the melody is more important but the great singer Julie Wilson told me once to know what the words mean and what the story is and be sure you can relate to it. If the most important thing to you is the melody then you may as well whistle or hum the song.
AM: Did you ever imagine the 'Village People' lasting so long?
RJ: I don't think anyone had an inkling of an idea when we began the group 'Village People' that thirty five years later they would not only still be played on the radio, but at every bar mitzvah and wedding.
AM: There must be some fringe benefits to that?
RJ: I get invited every year to Yankee Stadium because in major league baseball they play 'YMCA' at the top of the seventh inning.
AM: What is your perspective on the group after all these years?
RJ: I don't think any of us thought we would be remembered. You can speak to six different guys and everyone has a different view of it, but my take on it is, I thought we were always essentially a comedy act with great pop music and nice choreography. Our goal was to entertain and make people laugh.
AM: Well you certainly achieved that goal.
RJ: I viewed everything we did as successful because people looked at us and smiled and laughed.
AM: Did you have influences?
RJ: We took inspiration from the Marx Brothers and the Keystone Cops. Some people thought we looked like six county strippers out of our element and some thought we were the inspiration for Chippendales.
AM: I guess you were before them.
RJ: We took all of this and combined it with inspiration from the Coasters and the Temptations, all the great soul groups of the Sixties that had nice, tight choreography. We combined it all and gave it a wink, a wiggle and a wave. We always let the audience know that we were laughing with them.
AM: You all danced pretty provocatively.
RJ: We'd walk right up to the line and wiggle our hips, show them our butts and open our shirts.
AM: Did anyone ever get offended?
RJ: We never got offensive to people. We never took it so far that children couldn't be there. If you were a gay man you 'got it' and if you were a straight man you looked at your girlfriend or wife and how they 'got it.'
AM: This was before any real contemporary gay culture had started.
RJ: Well Liberace did his thing to bring it in to people's homes in the Fifties. I don't think there was anyone quite like us who was taking it right to your living room via Dick Clark, Merv Griffin and Don Kirshner.
AM: Do you think it's because you are gay?
RJ: Well I am and I've always been open about it. I've been with the same partner for twenty seven years. Not everybody in the group is gay.
AM: Why did you write your book, 'Macho Man?'
RJ: That book is a conversation between Mark Bego, one of my longest lasting friends in the world, and myself. He was the first person who interviewed me as a professional artist. We wrote a book that looks at the gay influence before we were born like Alexander the Great, King James to Oscar Wilde and then we talked about our lives from our perspective and what we knew.
AM: Do you consider yourself a gay history expert?
RJ: We don't know everything about gay culture but I've certainly learned a lot living for over half a century. The 'Village People' as a group did not try to bring culture to America
AM: Well it did the trick! Did you do it on purpose?
RJ: Yes with the sharpest scalpel in the drawer. What we did knowingly or unknowingly, was we seduced a mainstream audience and got them to like what we were doing. We went in and planted these ideas in our audience and before they even understood what they were liking the wound had already healed over and we were part of their pop culture.
AM: What do you think was the secret to your success?
RJ: We did it in a non-offensive way. It was an irresistible way with music, personality and charm from all six of us. It's amazing that it's still around and people are still being affected by it and still listening to it.
AM: What's one of your favorite things about being a member in the iconic group?
RJ: It's wonderful to have sold over a hundred million records and wonderful to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, have a mantel full of awards and be on the cover of 'Rolling Stone' magazine, but the greatest legacy to me is when I meet people today and they know the music or my face, they smile! That is like a MasterCard commercial, it's priceless. To have something in your life that causes people to smile even for a moment, is just the best.
AM: What is another example of a benefit of being in the group?
RJ: In 2005 I received an invitation to perform at the White House for the second inauguration of George Bush at one of the ten inaugural balls.
AM: Did you consider not going?
RJ: I'm not really that political of a person so even though his administration tried to make me a second class citizen by not allowing me to marry someone that I love, I thought I'd still like to do it. I wanted to take my Mom who has been a Republican all her life and she had never been to a Presidential Inaugural.
AM: It must have been a benefit anyway right?
RJ: The benefit was to raise money for building homes for returning Iraqi war veterans. I knew the appeal my career had was wide. My audience is a wide spectrum of people.
AM: There's no reason you shouldn't have done it. What is your goal as an entertainer?
RJ: My goal is to be enthusiastic and personal as well as positive.
AM: So tell me about the evening?
RJ: I got there and I was in my best tuxedo and black cowboy hat with a bolo tie on, a maverick. It was an opportunity for me to make a statement. At that time my partner and I had gotten married when we thought it was going to just roll through America United States
AM: Why did you do that instead of to George Bush the person?
RJ: I did not want to personalize it since he wanted me to be a second class citizen. I also dedicated it to the man I had been married to for twenty three years and it was just quiet.
AM: How did you handle the quiet?
RJ: I just started singing the theme from the old Mary Tyler Moore show, "Who can turn the world on with his smile? Well it's you George and you can make it! and so on until you're gonna make it after all"....then I went into YMCA with "but young man I was once in your shoes I said young man I was down with the blues"...when it got to the four beats right before the chorus of YMCA all the Republicans in their tuxedos and ball gowns were at the front of the stage like elementary children making the shapes of the letters!
AM: That must have been awesome!
RJ: That's when I knew that no matter what kind of audience I can steam role right over that. Something I do is bigger than anything political. That's how I know that what I do is more than just a pop group.
To learn more about Randy Jones visit his web site http://www.randyjonesworld.com/
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