Biography
Philip Jeays came into the world in Taunton, Somerset, in 1962 and ranks among the most singular singer-songwriters in recent British history. Music as a vocation did not enter his thoughts until the early 1980s, when a three-year residence in France acquainted him with the songs of Jacques Brel.
He returned to England in 1983 and received formal training from his mother, a Royal Academy of Music–qualified opera singer, before starting to compose his own material.
Over the following decade he appeared regularly on the London folk and poetry circuit, where a modest yet steadfast audience responded to his large body of work shaped by the French chanson tradition yet filtered through an unmistakably English sensibility—a blend previously perfected only by the occasional humorist Jake Thackeray.
In 1996, during a performance at London’s Canal Café Theatre, Tom Robinson noticed him and arranged a series of support slots. Several months afterward Jeays made his Edinburgh Festival debut and collected a Spirit of the Fringe Award. The next year he appeared at Canada’s Vancouver International Comedy Festival; although not a comedy act, his physical delivery and dry lyrics earned strong approval.
He returned to the Edinburgh Festival in both 1998 and 1999, then issued his first album, October, on his own label. The recording featured his standing group of David Harrod on piano, John Peacock on guitar, William George Q on bass, and Jezza Campbell on drums. Two further albums followed: Cupid Is a Drunkard in 2000, again released after an Edinburgh run, and The Ballad of Ruben Garcia in 2002. During the same period Jeays began adding regular British radio appearances to his schedule.
With Janet Beale now handling accordion and organ in place of Q, his fourth album, Fame, appeared in the middle of 2003.
He returned to England in 1983 and received formal training from his mother, a Royal Academy of Music–qualified opera singer, before starting to compose his own material.
Over the following decade he appeared regularly on the London folk and poetry circuit, where a modest yet steadfast audience responded to his large body of work shaped by the French chanson tradition yet filtered through an unmistakably English sensibility—a blend previously perfected only by the occasional humorist Jake Thackeray.
In 1996, during a performance at London’s Canal Café Theatre, Tom Robinson noticed him and arranged a series of support slots. Several months afterward Jeays made his Edinburgh Festival debut and collected a Spirit of the Fringe Award. The next year he appeared at Canada’s Vancouver International Comedy Festival; although not a comedy act, his physical delivery and dry lyrics earned strong approval.
He returned to the Edinburgh Festival in both 1998 and 1999, then issued his first album, October, on his own label. The recording featured his standing group of David Harrod on piano, John Peacock on guitar, William George Q on bass, and Jezza Campbell on drums. Two further albums followed: Cupid Is a Drunkard in 2000, again released after an Edinburgh run, and The Ballad of Ruben Garcia in 2002. During the same period Jeays began adding regular British radio appearances to his schedule.
With Janet Beale now handling accordion and organ in place of Q, his fourth album, Fame, appeared in the middle of 2003.
Albums
