'Home Improvement' actor, Bob Dylan drummer Mickey Jones dies

Mickey Jones and and Tim Allen in "Home Improvement. Mickey Jones and and Tim Allen in "Home Improvement. Photo: ABC Photo Archives/ABC Photo Archives/Getty Images Photo: ABC Photo Archives/ABC Photo Archives/Getty Images Image 1 of / 114 Caption Close 'Home Improvement' actor, Bob Dylan drummer Mickey Jones dies 1 / 114 Back to Gallery

Mickey Jones had a most unusual career that included sitting behind Judas, as well as playing all manner of drug dealers and rough bikers and also standing in the lobby of the Hotel California.

A Houston native, Jones worked as a drummer and then actor in a career that spanned more than 50 years. He was best known for playing Pete Bilker on TV's "Home Improvement," a role that gave him a catch phrase for the remainder of his life: "That would be me." Jones died Wednesday after a long illness. He was 76.

He was a beloved figure in the entertainment industry.

"He has never met a stranger," friend and former bandmate Kenny Rogers once said of Jones. "If somebody meets Mickey, they're best friends forever."

Jones, who was born in Houston, graduated from Sunset High School in Grand Prairie and spent a few years at the University of North Texas. He got his start drumming for Trini Lopez around Dallas in the late-1950s and then Johnny Rivers in the '60s.

He possessed a joyful, youthful spirit, even while occasionally during interviews slipping into character as one of the toughs he played on TV. One of his last big roles was as a Kentucky drug lord in "Justified."

Though Jones was best-known for TV, he appeared in all sorts of places in popular culture, particularly music. When Levon Helm decided to sit out a tour with Bob Dylan in 1966 Jones was hired to fill the seat. Which put him there for the infamous Manchester Free Trade Hall concert where a fan called Dylan "Judas" for his switch from acoustic folk music to electric rock 'n roll.

MORE: Bob Dylan. 1966. That drummer from Houston.

Jones was also the drummer for the First Edition, the '60s pop band featuring Rogers, a fellow Houstonian.

He was just beginning to get into acting when he was hired for a photo shoot in the mid-'70s not knowing it was for the Eagles' "Hotel California" album. Jones can be seen in the gatefold of the LP standing in the lobby.

His first big acting break came in 1978 in an episode of "The Incredible Hulk." Not too long after he appeared in a well-known Breathsavers commercial, playing a biker type, a trope he'd slip into many times again. Jones was active in his later years doing charity events and fundraisers, often supporting veterans' causes.

"If I could say just one thing about Mickey Jones at the end of the day, he's just truly an ambassador for the entertainment business," friend Billy Bob Thornton has said of Jones. "If you need something done, he'll do it. He's reliable and talented, and he'd give you his left arm, whether it's on a shoot or all the charity work he does. With his legacy — Dylan, Kenny and all that — for him to have that passion and love, he knows something the rest of us don't."

Jones is survived by his wife, Phyllis Starr, and their two children.