The Blog of Awesome Women / Peggy Jones: Lady Bo

A woman who followed her own star and in so doing shattered several music stereotypes, Peggy Jones had music in her soul from the beginning; a dancer in her toddler years, she had performed in Carnegie Hall by the age of nine. As a youngster, the New Yorker was intrigued by the ukelele and moved onto the guitar. It never occurred to her that it would seem unusual for a woman to play guitar in the forties. “Little did I know that a female playing any instrument was like a new thing. I was breaking a lot of barriers.”

By the age of seventeen, she was producing and cutting singles such as “Honey Bunny Baby/Why Do I Love You?” and “Everybody’s Talking/I’m Gonna Love My Way.” In the late fifties, she and her friends and future husband Bobby Bakersfield formed The Jewels, a band made up of men and women, which was very unusual for the time; even more unique, the band included both black and white members. The Jewels got a lot of flack for their disregard for gender and racial boundaries, but they persisted in performing to enthusiastic audiences. Jones recalls fighting past the objections, “I just hung in there because this is what I wanted to do, and I had a real strong constitution as to the way I thought I should go about it.”

Peggy’s singular instrumentation is one of the components of Bo Diddley’s successful albums and national tours throughout the fifties and sixties. Diddley, famous for his signature rhythm, saw Jones walking down the street with her guitar one day, and, ever the savvy showman, recognized that having a pretty girl playing guitar in his band would be a very good thing for ticket and record sales. Peggy was ushered into the world of professional musicianship full-time with Diddley’s touring band. She learned a great deal, perfecting her guitar playing to the point where Diddley himself was a bit threatened by her hot licks. She also saw the hardships of the road and experienced firsthand the color line that existed even for music stars. When they hit the South in the hearses they toured in, the band often had to say in nonwhite hotels and had to use separate bathrooms for “coloreds.” They even figured out a way to cook in the car when they couldn’t find a restaurant that would serve black people.

However, Jones wasn’t content with just backup and liner note credits and took a hiatus from the nonstop Bo Diddley road show. She again wrote her own material and performed with The Jewels again. In the late sixties, she formed her own band and went out on the road. Peggy Jones was a true pioneer for women in music. Because of her, the idea of a woman playing guitar—or any instrument in a band—became much more acceptable.

“I don’t think I went in with any attitude that ‘Oh, oh, I’m a girl, they’re not going to like my playing.’ So probably that might have been my savior, because I just went in as a musician and expected to be accepted as a musician.”—Peggy Jones

This bio of Peggy Jones was taken from “The Book of Awesome Women,” which is available now.