In 1994, a hot new band made its way onto the music scene. Counting Crows hit the top ten with a song called "Mr. Jones", off
of their debut album, "August and Everything After." This band became real popular real fast. They were voted best new band
by Rolling Stone magazine and on the 1994 MTV music awards. They also won the 1995 American Music Award for best
alternative band. Their album was released in September 1993 and sold its first million copies by March of 1994. In early 94,
the album was on the charts and was being played on college radio stations. In January, the Crows made an appearance on
Saturday Night Live. When MTV added the "Mr. Jones" video, the album skyrocketed up forty places in a week.
Adam Duritz is the lead singer of this band. He was 29 at the time of his success in 94. He was born in Baltimore. He also lived
in Boston, El Paso, and Denver before coming to live in San Francisco. He attended Berkeley College but dropped out before
graduation. Here he began to write songs.
Duritz's road to fame has been long and dark. He had a very bad drug addiction for many years, using pot, acid, and other
hallucinogens. At one point it was so bad that Duritz would have acid trips without taking acid. Duritz says, "When I was 23, I
just didn't have sober days. I was falling apart. I was in a really big hole. There was a time I couldn't tie my own shoelaces -
when I had to sleep in the same bed with my dad because I couldn't get to sleep otherwise." With the help of his parents and
physicians, Duritz was able to fight his addiction and start making a real life for himself.
Duritz knew from the time he was a young kid that he wanted to be a musician. He performed in the bands Sordid Humor,
Model Society, and Himalayans, which included bassist Marty Jones, whom the song "Mr. Jones" refers to. He did not feel that
his life was going anywhere though. He was unhappy with the materials he wrote. He felt that he was setting himself up for a big
fall, with unrealistic expectations of making it to the big time.
In 1989, Duritz returned to the U.S. after spending time in Europe. He began playing in a band with Marty Jones and guitarist
David Bryson. Their band fell apart when Bryson left to engineer Faith No More's album, "Angeldust." But the two did team up
again and began performing in coffeehouses, cafes, and bars as the Counting Crows. They decided to put a whole band
together. The keyboardist, Charlie Gillingham, had played for a band which Duritz had opened for on his very first gig. Their
bass player, Matt Malley, had been in a band with Bryson called Mr. Dog. The drummer, Steve Bowman, who has since been
replaced by Ben Mize from Cracker, had rehearsed in the same building as Duritz. Bryson had produced Bowman's band's
record. Another guitarist, Dan Vickrey, came along a little later, having played in a lot of Gillingham's previous bands.
Local audiences had always liked this band. Record labels became interested. Duritz became a close, personal friend of Gary
Gersh. Gersh signed the Crows to the Geffen label. He then became the executive producer of their album. T-Bone Burnett
produced the album.