Jim Couza

Born on 27 April 1945 in New Bedford, Massachusetts, Jim Couza passed away in England on 2 August 2009. Already 21 when he first took up the guitar, he drew initial material from piano arrangements heard at home, beginning with Joni Mitchell’s “The Circle Game” after its recording by Tom Rush. Early performances took place at the coffee house attached to New Bedford’s 1st Unitarian Church. An international music festival in Foxhollow introduced him to the hammer dulcimer, an instrument on which he would earn wide regard; Celtic repertoire shaped both his playing and his outlook. Present during the Young Tradition’s inaugural American tour of 1968–69, he caught their set at Tri-Works in New Bedford and there met Ray Fisher of the Fisher family along with Howard Glasser, whose holdings constitute one of the largest private archives of British folk music in the United States.

Couza’s first journey to Britain began on 1 December 1981 and lasted two months, the initial half devoted to recording his debut album, Brightest And Best, the remainder given to a curtailed round of UK folk-club dates. He returned to the United States in February 1982 yet came back to Britain three months later and thereafter made the UK his permanent residence. Festivals and clubs on both sides of the Atlantic formed the core of his schedule; among his recording projects was a collaboration with the D’Urbeville Ramblers, whose members included Dave Hatfield and Pete Stanley. He remained in England until his death at the age of 64.