Don’t think of Mel Jones as a drummer. He was once. But today, he plays the harp. And plumber from Davie County can blow his Mississippi saxophone.

“What’s really weird,’’ he says, “is that it’s the same 10 holes. You blow and suck in.’’

He first started playing in Chapel Hill. He heard the likes of local legend, Peg Leg Sam, and became intrigued by the sounds of Sonny Tery and Phil Wiggins, making Mel think harp guys cropped up everywhere in North Carolina.

But not in Davie County. When he moved there in the mid 1970s, there was no one. Just old-time musicians. So, Mel picked up the harmonica and joined the spontaneous jam sessions sprouting up everywhere in and around where he lives in Mocksville.

Today, Mel keeps pretty busy. He plays with his blues group, Bag O’ Bones; his Piedmont blues duo with guitarist Danny Wicker and his trio he calls Tin Can Alley, an R&B party band grounded in the sound of Detroit and Memphis.

It all gives his former drummer three different musical personalities.

“When you get to my age, you want to keep things moving,’’ says Mel, 56. “I feel like a young man with something wrong with him.’’

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