In 2003, Edgar Jones was preparing to record Soothing Music For Stray Cats, his debut solo album which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year.

When it arrived, it was like a bolt out of the blue, this innovative mesh of everything he was listening to at the time – New Orleans R&B and rock’n’roll; early soul and doo wop; be bop jazz – a far cry from The Stairs’ Nuggets/Pebbles indebted garage rock he’d previously been making.
At the time he was a 20 something singer, songwriter, bassist, who had been earning a living playing in Paul Weller’s then live band. When Paul set off on an acoustic tour, Edgar, no longer needed, holed up in his living room and over the next couple of months put down something quite extraordinary.

Edgar had made his name in the aforesaid Stairs, which blazed a trail on the 90s garage/mod scene. He sang and played bass, then there was Ged Lynn on guitar and Paul Maguire on drums. When they split in 1994 they left behind a classic album, 1992’s Mexican R’n’B and five singles including the seminal Weed Bus. [The Stairs have reformed several times since, each time to make a joyful noise and the first time back in 2015 when they were persuaded out of retirement by Liverpool band The Wicked Whispers, now sadly defunct since 2018, although frontman Michael Murphy now runs Ditto Music].

After a brief sojourn with The La’s in 1996 (“a form of national service”) Edgar then helmed the Isrites (an affirmation in Liverpool slang) with line up completed by Paul Maguire’s younger brother Dave Maguire, Luke Goldberg and Sean Payne. When Lee Mavers heard them he poached Goldberg and Maguire for his own band. Jones, then regrouped with Sean Payne, fronting The Big Kids in 2001, adding Sean’s brother Howie Payne on lead guitar and Russ Pritchard on bass and Edgar moved over to guitar. But then with a case of history repeating itself, Jones lost his band once more, this time with Sean Payne and Pritchard going off to form The Zutons and Howie Payne to The Stands. Since 2010 Pritchard has been playing bass and singing backing vocals in Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds.

Unphased, Edgar then got the Joneses together, a loose collective unique in having three lead singers – Edgar sharing the vocal spotlight with Kristian Ealey (who played Matt Musgrove in Brookside and Hollyoaks and sadly died in 2016) and Candie Payne (who would release her own soulful solo album, 2007’s I Wish I Could Have Loved You More produced by Simon Dine and issued on Deltasonic].
Around the same time Edgar also bumped into Mike Badger and Paul Hemmings, both former La’s acolytes who had founded Liverpool’s Viper label. They told Edgar they’d be keen to put out a solo album: Soothing Music For Stray Cats would become Edgar’s first of five solo albums for the Viper label.

The album was recorded on an eight track cassette portastudio donated to Edgar by Johnny Marr – Edgar had also managed to fit in playing bass with an early line up of Marr’s Healers [and with Ian McCullough and Saint Etienne along the line as well]. Johnny Marr told me that Edgar was born to be a star but had spent most of his rehearsal time with The Healers trying to convince the former Smiths guitarist to start a soul and R&B styled revue. Marr told him to go start his own, hence the Joneses. “It was obvious he would make it work,” he said. “He had charisma and talent and the songs and the groove.” So in Edgar’s words, “I just gave it a go. What did I have to lose?’

Recorded in his Liverpool flat aka The Mansions, with just one microphone set up in the middle of the living room and with wooden floor, high ceiling acoustics, the intimacy and intensity is palpable. From the moment the needle hits the record (in 2005 it was CD only, since then it’s been issued on glorious vinyl by Liverpool label Mellowtone Records in 2015], we are in the room with him then transported to New York’s Village Vanguard on a Monday with the title track then to Harlem’s Apollo on amateur night with Tenderly [think the 5 Royales stepping out with Thelonious Monk] then off to the Saturday fish fry for More Than You Ever Had. In that sense Soothing Music For Stray Cats is part musical diary, part travelogue.

Freedom, meanwhile, wears its Riot era Sly And The Family Stone influence well – it also steals a bit from Glenn Miller’s Moonlight Serenade and Sittin’ On The Fence could be a lost Dr John improv if we didn’t know better.

There are also references to Duke Ellington and Charles Mingus – Edgar’s late father was a jazz head who especially loved the Duke and the album is dedicated to him.
The musicians Edgar surrounded himself with to record the album are some of the best Liverpool has; Grenville ‘The Griffin’ Harrop and Nicholas Miniski sharing the drum stool; Osmond St Clair on tenor and baritone sax; a young Paul Molloy adding Eddie Hazel styled fuzz guitar soloing on Catnip and adding texture to Gonna Miss You When You’re Gone [Paul’s a vital part of The Coral now; his two solo albums, 2020’s The Fifth Dimension and last year’s The Madmen Of Apocalypso are both bonkers and ace].
Then there’s Rachel Jones, Edgar’s very own Betty Harris who sings lead on You Know You Can Do It, a gorgeous birth of soul number and backing vocals on It’s No Good.

Soothing Music For Stray Cats didn’t chart but nominated for the Mercury Music Prize, it started to make waves attracting fans as diverse as Daniel Radcliffe and Noel Gallagher. The latter said of it, “It bent my head, man. It’s probably one of the best records I have ever heard.” Noel even tried to buy Edgar’s flat to use that living room for his future projects.

Since then Edgar’s gone from strength to strength; notching up a further ?? albums spanning Soothing Music’s follow up 2007’s Gettin’ a Little Help … From the Joneses through to 2017’s The Song Of Day And Night, a Mersey mardi gras issued on The Coral’s Skeleton Key label, and 2023’s Reflections Of A Soul Dimension on which Jones lives out his Dusty Springfield dreams on songs wrapped in dramatic strings and horns that are perfect to dance to on sprung wooden dance floors too. In October, meanwhile, Document, a recreation of his current live show in the studio is due for issue on Nick Graff and Pete Wilkinson’s AV8 label. There’s also an album in waiting of raw, stripped back blues, just howling voice, acoustic guitar and stomp box inspired by Robert Cray, who took Edgar out on tour with him earlier this year. But that’s a story for another time.

Liverpool has produced so many great lost songwriters, from Jimmy Campbell to Michael Head. Edgar is up there with the best of them and to paraphrase Noel Gallagher, Soothing Music For Stray Cats is still one of the best records I’ve ever heard.