Eleven years ago, when Chuck Jones was a freshman at Clear Lake High School, he had a hunch that one day he would make it in the entertainment world.

An avid piano player at the time, Jones remembers wanting to pursue a career in music, particularly singing and songwriting.

During his junior year, his uncle gave him an acoustic guitar for a Christmas present.

The fact that the guitar was for right-handers didn't stop the left-handed Jones from playing it. It was then that he gave himself the nickname "Southpaw."

"I wanted to play up the left-handed thing because it sets me apart a bit from the other performers," said Jones, 25. "When I play the guitar it actually faces the wrong way and it is upside down."

After graduating from high school in 1995, Jones took his guitar and headed to Nashville, where he studied mass communications at Lipscomb University.

During his freshman year, Jones and other students formed a band that played at restaurants and clubs around Nashville.

"I also got in a songwriters' circle where I had to audition to play at local clubs," he said. "This was when I got invited to play as a solo artist."

That experience gave Jones the confidence to move to Los Angeles after graduating from college. He spent a year performing with his harmonica and guitar in coffeehouses.

He describes his music as "quirky folk rock" and said he uses word play and rhyming schemes in his songs.

"I used to like writing the songs, but now I envision the audience reacting to them," he said. "I have a sense of what is absurd and strange, and when I'm on stage I present myself as a lonely, isolated character."

Jones, who is single, said he can make fun of girlfriends who don't really exist and what it's like to be an adult in America.

"Between songs, I talk a lot to the audience," he said. "I am very comfortable being on the stage and while I'm there I find that humor can come from several different places."

With three recently released independent CDs under his belt and a slew of performances, Jones will make his debut appearance in Houston at 8 p.m. Friday at the Bayou Theater on the campus of the University of Houston-Clear Lake.

The performance also will feature songwriter Vanessa Peters, a recent graduate of Texas A&M University.

Tickets are available at the door for $10.

For more information about Jones, visit the Web site, http://www.southpawjones.com/.

"I always thought, ever since ninth grade, that I had the talent to perform, but I never told anyone," he said. "After Nashville and Los Angeles, I knew I had a decent shot at it."
 

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