The velvet “Love Boat” crooner was 86

Kathleen William October 27, 2024

Jack Jones – the pop singer with the velvety voice who had hits like “Wives and Lovers” and “The Impossible Dream (The Quest)”, but is perhaps best known today as a singer on television shows The Love Boat Subject – died Wednesday at Eisenhower Medical in Rancho Mirage, California. He was 86 years old. His widow, Eleonara Jones, said the cause of death was leukemia, which he had battled for two years.

Jones' death comes just seven months after the death of Steve Lawrence, a singer of similar quality and style, at the age of 88. They were two of the best singers of what was then known as easy listening music – music that fell out of favor with the boom of rock in the late 1960s and 1970s. This music has experienced a rebirth in recent decades under a new branding – traditional pop – with new stars such as Michael Bublé.

Jones had three No. 1 hits billboard's Easy Listening charts (now known as Adult Contemporary): “The Race Is On” (1965), “The Impossible Dream (The Quest)” (1966), and “Lady” (1967). Jones received a Grammy nomination for best vocal performance, male for “The Impossible Dream,” the standout ballad from the Broadway musical Man of La Mancha. The song, which also received a Grammy nomination for song of the year, was so popular on TV variety shows and nightclubs that it became a cliché.

In the early 1960s, Jones won two Grammys for best vocal performance, one male for his renditions of Tony Velona's “Lollipops and Roses” and Burt Bacharach and Hal David's “Wives and Lovers.” (The winners of the corresponding women's award in those two years were Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand, so Jones was flying high.)

“Wives and Lovers,” which reached No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 in January 1964, was also nominated for the Grammys for Record and Song of the Year. The lyrics – which warn women: “Don't think because you've got a ring on your finger / You don't have to try anymore” – are now considered hopelessly sexist. But if you can get past that, it's one of Bacharach and David's best-sounding Hits, featuring Jones' smooth vocals on a jazzy arrangement.

Jones responded to the criticism the song received by changing the lyrics to make fun of men. But he never dropped the song from his set.

“Since it’s a politically incorrect song, I’ll start with a disclaimer,” he once said. “I hear that women still call radio stations and are upset that such a sexist song is being played. It's part of history now, it won a Grammy and I meant no harm when I made it. It shaped my career and I’m grateful for that.”

Jones has had three top 20 albums on the Billboard 200: Wives and lovers, dear heart And The impossible dream. Wives and lovers And The impossible dream Each stayed in the table for more than a year.

Jones, Lawrence and other singers such as Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Tony Bennett and Andy Williams were among the last singers of old-fashioned easy listening music in the 1960s, when rock increasingly dominated the charts.

As Chris Koseluk noted in The Hollywood Reporter's obituary: “When filmmakers wanted to recreate the easy-listening atmosphere of the '60s, Jones was one of their go-to people. He can be heard on the soundtracks of Good morning, Vietnam (1987), Goodfellas (1990), Ruthless (1995), Duplex (2003), Bobby (2006) and American hustle and bustle (2013), in which he had a cameo appearance. “Lollipops and Roses” accompanied the end credits of a 2008 episode mad Men.”

Jones sang the theme songs for several films including A delicate matter (1963), Love with the right stranger (1963) and Where the love has remained (1964). In the 1965 Oscar telecast he sang the latter song, which was nominated for Best Original Song. On the 1975 telecast, he sang the nominee “Little Prince” and sang two other songs with Aretha Franklin and Frankie Laine, including that year's winner “We May Never Love Like This Again.” He opened it in 1970 The best thing ever program, the last pre-recorded Grammy-branded show before the live broadcast began the following year, singing Joe South's “Games People Play,” that year's Song of the Year winner.

Jones sang The Love Boat Theme written by Paul Williams and Charles Fox during this series' first eight seasons (1977–85). (Dionne Warwick recorded it for Season 9.) The song has cheesy elements, and certainly the show was TV at its most pointless, but Jones' dynamic vocals and Williams' delicate lyricism (“Love/life's sweetest reward)” were Both work you could be proud of.

Jones' recording of “Theme From Love Boat” collapsed billboardHis 1970s AC chart hits included “Let Me Be the One,” a cover of a top-notch Williams-Roger Nichols ballad that appeared on the Carpenters' 1971 album Carpenter; “What I Did for Love,” the instant standard from the 1975 Broadway hit A chorus line; and “With One More Look at You” from the 1976 remake starring Streisand A star is born.

Jones received his fifth and final Grammy nomination for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance in 1998 for his album Jack Jones paints a tribute to Tony Bennett. Bennett, of course, was one of the few traditional, old-school pop artists to find success in recent decades. (Fun Fact: Bennett's “I Wanna Be Around” and Jones' “Wives and Lovers” were both nominated for record of the year at the 1964 Grammys. Both lost to Henry Mancini's “The Days of Wine and Roses.”)

Jones continued to perform in casinos, arts centers and cabarets until shortly before his death.

Jones was married to actress Jill St. John from 1967 to 1969. They were one of the most famous celebrity couples of the time and both had extremely successful careers. (They weren't a bad looking couple either.)

John Allan Jones was born on January 14, 1938 in Los Angeles. His father, Allen Jones, starred in The Marx Brothers A night at the opera (1935) and A day at the races (1937), as well Show boat (1936). The elder Jones had a hit in 1938 with “The Donkey Serenade” from the film The firefly. He had performed the song on horseback for Jeanette MacDonald in the 1937 MGM musical. Jack Jones' mother, Irene Hervey, was a film and television actress who received a Primetime Emmy nomination in 1969 for an appearance on the long-running sitcom My three sons.

Jones, who lived in Indian Wells, California, married six times. From 1960 to 1966 he was married to Katie Lee Nuckols (also known as the model Lee Larance); Jill St. John from 1967 to 1969; Gretchen Roberts from 1970 to 1971; Kathryn Simmons, from 1977 to 1982; and Kim Ely from 1982 to 2005. In 2009 he married Eleonora Donata Peters.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by a daughter, Crystal Thomas, from his marriage to Nuckols; another daughter, Nicole Ramasco, from his marriage to Ely; two stepdaughters, Nicole Whitty and Colette Peters, from his marriage to Peters; and three grandchildren.