Nic Jones

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Nic Jones bigraphy, stories - British musician

Nic Jones : biography

9 January 1947 –

Nicolas Paul "Nic" Jones (born 9 January 1947) is an English folk singer, fingerstyle guitarist and fiddle player whose professional career spanned the years 1964-1982. He recorded five solo albums, and was a frequent guest performer.

Discography

Jones’ first four albums were originally released on vinyl on the Trailer Records label. Currently only the first two are available on CD. Legal wrangles continue to impede Jones’ full back-catalogue from being re-released.

In 2001 Penguin Eggs was voted to 2nd place in the "Best Folk Album of all Time" by listeners of the Mike Harding show on BBC Radio 2. The opening track on this album, "Canadee-I-O" was also recorded by Bob Dylan and included on his 1992 album Good as I Been to You. Some critics have accused Dylan of stealing Jones’ arrangements for this song without credit or offer of royalties. Others disagree, and believe the arrangements to be different. Another school of thought is that the arranger’s copyright on recordings of traditional songs is little more than a legal fiction, allowing artists to receive "mechanical royalty payments" that would otherwise be kept by their recording labels. See the links below for further discussion on this issue.

Solo

Studio albums:

  • Ballads and Songs (1970)
  • Nic Jones (1971)
  • The Noah’s Ark Trap (1977)
  • From the Devil to a Stranger (1978)
  • Penguin Eggs (1980)"Penguin Eggs was voted album of the year by both " and Melody Maker magazines.

Remastered live albums:

  • In Search of Nic Jones (1998)
  • Unearthed (2001)
  • Game Set Match (2006)

With The Halliard

  • It’s The Irish In Me – The Halliard (1967)
  • The Halliard and Jon Raven (1967)
  • Broadside Songs (2005 — the Halliard songs from and Jon Raven, plus 10 more)
  • The Last Goodnight! (2005 — long-lost recording from 1968, plus 3 more)

With Bandoggs

  • Bandoggs (1978)

With Maddy Prior and June Tabor

  • Silly Sisters (1976)

Jones also sang and played guitar and fiddle on recordings by many other folk artists.See (by Reinhard Zierke)

In 1999, John Wesley Harding released a tribute album entitled Trad Arr Jones.

Notes

Biography

Nic Jones (nicjones.net) ("Penguin Eggs" – Folk magasine). (Article from "Folk roots")See Autobiography at was born on 9 January 1947 in Orpington, Kent. He first learned to play guitar as a young teenager and early musical influences included such artists as The Shadows, Duane Eddy, Chet Atkins, Wes Montgomery and Ray Charles. His interest in folk music was aroused by an old school friend, Nigel Paterson, who was a member of a folk band called The Halliard. When the members of the group decided to turn professional, one of them left to pursue a different career and Nic was invited to take his place. Whilst playing with The Halliard, Jones learned to play the fiddle, and also how to research and arrange traditional material. The group toured the UK between 1964 and 1968, eventually splitting up when two of the members decided to pursue careers outside the folk music business.See (Myspace).

In 1968 Jones married Julia Seymour and they eventually were to have three children together – Daniel (d), Helen and Joe. The couple settled in Chelmsford and Jones decided to pursue a career as a solo folk artist. He started playing professional gigs in 1969, and in 1970 released his first album, Ballads and Songs for Trailer Records.Trailer Records was a specialist folk music label founded by Bill Leader, and distributed by Transatlantic Between 1971 and 1980 Jones recorded four more solo albums – three more for Trailer Records and his last, "Penguin Eggs", for Topic. Apart from Jones’ trademark vocals, fingerstyle guitar and fiddle, the records also introduced guest instrumentalists playing piano, harmonium, bodhran, melodeon and recorders.