Jimmy Jones: Comedy’s best kept secret...
Everyone from the Royals to the Krays has been a fan, says Garry Bushell
WHAT connects the Royal Family to the Kray Twins? The answer is Jimmy Jones, the outrageous underground comedian whose act made him a millionaire several times over.
“Jimmy who?” asked DJ Tim Hudson when he interviewed Jones in Los Angeles ahead of his 1970s Lasvegas show.
“I’ve never heard of you!”
But when Hudson threw open the show to callers, the first to ring was Dudley Moore, the second was Tom Selleck...
The Royal connection is more surprising. “I got on very well with Princess Margaret, she loved the rude stuff... and she quite liked the act as well,”
Jones says with a twinkle in his eye.
“One night she laughed so much the Rothmans fell out of her mouth – you didn’t see that on The Crown.”
When the Cockney comic met Prince Charles at a charity function in Essex, HRH shook his hand and asked if he’d be doing anything from his notorious comedy albums.
“I told him the organisers had banned me from doing adult material because he was there. He replied: ‘Don’t worry on my account, Jim, you won’t offend me; give us the good stuff! I’ve got all the records!’”
Jones, 82, a one-time crane-driver at Dagenham Docks, became a royal favourite by accident after rock star Keith Emerson of The Nice and ELP got him his own late-night comedy room at Mayfair nightclub Gulliver’s.
“One section of the room was reserved for Royalty,” says Jones. “And they kept the lights off so they couldn’t be photographed doing anything indiscreet. Princess Margaret saw me a lot. Prince Philip came in, and so did Prince Charles.
“The only one who never came was the Queen. I don’t know why. It can’t have been my language, it was no worse than Philip’s!
“Princess Margaret liked a laugh and she liked a tipple, but she couldn’t be seen drinking in public so when she came to a charity do at the Circus Tavern once we had to give her a bottle of Famous Grouse whisky in a teapot so the punters wouldn’t realise what she was up to...”
For decades Jimmy Jones was comedy’s best kept secret. Deemed too blue for TV – although he’s almost angelic compared to many modern performers – Jones’s career developed in London’s seedy underbelly, in the type of pubs and clubs we once saw on Minder and Only Fools
And Horses.
It’s no surprise to learn that he also performed for the Krays and their criminal rivals the Richardsons.
HIS SELF-PRODUCED vinyl LPS sold hundreds of thousands of copies by word of mouth alone. He didn’t swear, his catchphrase was “Kinnell” – “you can say it was short for blinkin’ ’ell if you like,” he laughs.
Jimmy’s fans included the Beatles, who played his tapes on their bus, the Stones, who watched his act at the Montague Arms in Peckham, Status Quo... and heavy rockers Iron Maiden, whose drummer, Nicko
Mcbrain, once worked for Jones.
“I sacked Nicko once,” Jones reveals.why? “He was my drummer and he was too loud... although I do like a bit of heavy metal now and again, especially the lead off a church roof.”
And to think he once intended to become a priest...
Jones, born Albert Simmonds, grew up in Rainham, Essex, close to where he lives now with his second wife, Marion. He isn’t too happy at the moment, though, likening the lockdown to “like being in prison but with no visiting.
“I’ve washed my hands so often I’ve gone down three ring sizes. Still at least it’s good for the garden. I’ve raked it, cut it, raked it again... it’s never looked better. Normally the only time it looks as good as next door’s is when it snows.”
He’s planning a farewell theatre tour later this year after seven decades in the entertainment business – he sang regularly with adult band the Hilly-billy Pennies when he was nine and won a radio talent show, Carroll Levis And His Discoveries, “the X Factor of its day,” aged 12. He then