(Above: Lea Jones; photo by Paul Carter for Eugene Scene)
By Randi Bjornstad
“As I wandered into your town I was feeling just like a stranger
Lonelier than being alone watching pretty people pass by
I clear my mind of these thoughts of darkness and danger
Around the corner here you come, I catch that funny look in your eye
It says “I know you, I don’t know your name,
Don’t know where you’re from, but I’m glad you came”
These are the opening lyrics to a newly re-recorded version of Lea Jones’ I Am Not a Stranger, a CD he wrote, recorded, and released decades ago but which he believes has even more relevance in today’s fractured and bitterly divided world.
The origin of I Am Not a Stranger dates to the late-1980s, when Jones spent some time in Chicago, writing songs, performing in clubs, and following a regimen that included running in Chicago’s Lakefront Trail, 18 miles of paths used for walking, biking, and running.
“I was running in the park one day, and I saw three really tough-looking, brawny young urban Black guys coming toward me,” Jones recalls. “One of them kept staring at me, and I just kept on running. But when we got close, he said, ‘You can do it — You can do it,’ and that changed my whole outlook. I went home an wrote the song, I Am Not a Stranger.”
By the time Jones recorded the song in 1990, the world was being wracked by wars often fueled by fear and hatred of “the other” — locations including Turkey, Sri Lanka, the Gulf War (involving an 11-nation coalition of troops from the Middle East, Africa, Europe, North America, and Australasia), Rwanda, Mindanao, Transnistria (Russia vs. Moldova), and Africa’s Tuareg Rebellion. The international situation sparked his determination to incorporate guest vocalists singing I Am Not a Stranger in the languages of marginalized people.
“We did the original with guest vocalists singing in Swahili, Yemeni, and Spanish,” Jones says, all three languages which represented minority groups that at the time were under attack from more dominant cultures.
Devotion to the cause
This time around, in the new version of I Am Not a Stranger, Jones and his collaborators sought to find vocalists to sing in languages of currently often-disenfranchised populations, including Spanish, Haitian Creole, and Palestinian Arabic.
“Our problem was that because of the world situation now, we were unable over a three-month period to find someone to help us record the Palestinian language portion of the song,” Jones says.
As he explains in the news release about the May 4 concert and CD release party at Tsunami Books in Eugene, this hesitation “became more and more understandable, as we saw Palestinians being snatched off the streets and jailed or deported and so who were unwilling to attract undue attention by contributing to our project.”
In fact, he reached out to people in Toronto and Quebec in Canada, trying without luck to find Palestinian singers, Jones says. “We had one Palestinian singer in Oakland, Calif., lined up but then she changed her mind. And we had a local person who could do it as Palestinian but who then also decided against it.”
Jones had production assistance from another well-known musical personality in Eugene, Don Latarski, who describes himself as a guitarist, composer, author, and nature lover. The CD also features singer Katie Henry and recording by Billy Barnett of Gung Ho Studios.
Everywhere he turned for talent to help make the recording happene, Jones says, “people said Hell, Yes!”
As for the band, Jones quips, “The players and engineers are a bunch of white guys who all support love and freedom.”
He and his team look at this effort “kind of like an inverted protest song,” Jones says. “We want to look at bias, stereotype, and fear and through this song help people to recognize the humanity in each other.”
Personal determination and sacrifice
At the same time that he has put so much effort into the new CD, Jones is fighting personal battles every bit as difficult. In fact, in his CD release statement, he writes that he “is fighting off cancer with the intent and purpose of completing this project.”
In addition to performing , he had a 35-year career as a special education teacher, mostly in middle schools in Maryland after earning a master’s degree at the University of Oregon.
“I loved teaching,” Jones says, “but I also was very happy to get back into music.” Starting in 2011, he began performing with a young relative, Keenan Dorn, in a duo they call Buffalo Romeo.
Now 70 years old, Jones was diagnosed in 2020 with metastatic squamous carcinoma, “and the ‘medicos’ and I all thought that I was going to die soon, and then I ended up living through it.” he says. He began undergoing chemotherapy treatments in 2022.
Nonetheless, he knew “the clock was still ticking” — exemplified by the necessity of a kidney transplant — “and we started recording all our stuff for posterity,” Jones says.
More recently, he began a series of platinum-based infusions, a regimen “that is a win if it doesn’t kill you before the cancer does,” he quips. “After six months, they told me I didn’t have cancer right then, but the cancer can mutate to deal with the treatments you’ve had, so for almost a year I’ve been on the last treatment option that we know of at this time.”
Although his health is precarious, Jones says his voice and his guitar playing “still work, although I don’t feel like rehearsing every day, so I don’t always. Singing is easy, guitar work is harder, performing is easy.” For years, he’s been a regular performer at 16 tons Cafe in the Woodfield Station shopping center at 29th and Willamette streets in Eugene.
All in all, Jones believes I Am Not a Stranger has a universal and timeless resonance, regardless of location or nationality.
“Deep inside,” he says, “I think we all feel the same.”
Lea Jones concert and CD Release: I Am Not a Stranger
When: 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. on Sunday, May 4, 2025
Where: Tsunami Books, 2585 Willamette St., Eugene, Oregon
What: A nationwide coalition of naturalized U.S. musicians singing in native languages to bring attention — and respect — to the melting-pot nature of the United States “while sparing the singers the risk of deportation”
Initial release: BuffaloRomeo.Bandcamp.com (five free listens, then paid download) and on You Tube (@Lea99Jones)
More music from Lea Jones: reverbnation.com/leajones2/song/15780916-i-am-not-a-stranger
Email: leajones99@gmail.com
