Wizz Jones

Tracing the English folk tradition back through its sprawling branches reveals a handful of resilient foundational roots. Guitarist Wizz Jones stands among these alongside the Watersons and Davy Graham. Although largely unrecognized in America at present, Jones held decisive sway over nearly every acoustic guitarist and folk participant who followed in Britain.

He took up the guitar in earnest during the mid-to-late 1950s after encountering Beat Generation writings and American blues and folk recordings by Son House, Blind Blake, Woody Guthrie, Cisco Houston, Robert Johnson, Lonnie Johnson, Tampa Red, Big Bill Broonzy, and others. In British coffeehouses Jones cut an unusual figure with his uncommonly long hair and itinerant appearance, his instrument literally secured by leather straps. Nevertheless his command of Mississippi Delta and early Chicago blues idioms was firm; younger players quickly absorbed both his persona and the rapid right-hand lines that marked his singular style.

An early BBC interview captured Jones as a bearded, disheveled provocateur while the broadcaster sought to understand the emerging British folk movement; the segment aired intact, elevating Jones to folk-hero status among the next wave of British players. John Martyn, Ralph McTell, Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, and Richard Thompson later cited the broadcast as a direct influence.

Adopting the Beat ethos, Jones and Clive Palmer spent time busking on French streets, where they crossed paths with a young Rod Stewart. Returning to England, Jones met banjoist Pete Stanley in 1962; the resulting bluegrass duo issued the collectible Columbia album Music for Moonshiners in early 1963 and followed it with Sixteen Tons of Bluegrass before parting in 1966.

From 1968 onward Jones began the series of recordings that later defined his cult reputation. Working with local musicians and the loose collective Lazy Farmer, he released nine albums between 1969 and 1977 on United Artists, Village Thing, Plant Life, Columbia, and various German independents: Wizz Jones, The Legendary Me, Right Now (with John Renbourn), Winter Songs, When I Leave Berlin (with Lazy Farmer and Bert Jansch), Lazy Farmer (as Lazy Farmer), Happiness Was Free, Magical Flight, Folk and Western Songs, and Solo Flight.

From the late 1970s through most of the 1980s Jones maintained an active festival and club schedule across Britain and Europe yet recorded sparingly under his own name, appearing instead on releases by Ralph McTell, Derroll Adams, and Chas McDevitt. Only two solo albums surfaced in that decade: Roll on River with Werner Lämmerhirt in 1981 and The Grapes of Life in 1987.

The 1990s marked Jones’s return as a solo performer, instructor, and recording artist. Live in Dublin appeared on LPR Publications, followed by the archival compilation The Village Thing Tapes. Renewed interest, spurred in part by the BBC series Acoustic Routes, kept him in demand at festivals throughout Britain and Europe. Additional 1990s releases included Late Nights & Long Days and the single “Easy Rider.” His first American issue, the Scenes Of compilation Dazzling Stranger, arrived in 1995. In 1998 the Masters of British Guitar series devoted a segment to Jones, featuring fifteen performances.

Through the Fingers, issued by Far Flung, preserves his acclaimed 1998 Milton Keynes concert. Lucky the Man followed in 2001 on Scenes Of, released simultaneously on CD and limited vinyl, with guests John Renbourn, Jacqui McShee, Clive Palmer, Gerry Conway, Simeon Jones, Martin Wheatley, and others. Early in the new century Jones balanced touring and new recordings with comprehensive reissues, many augmented by bonus tracks. In 2012 he and John Renbourn toured, refining material they had shared since the early 1960s; the pair began studio work on those songs at the start of 2015, though Renbourn died days after the final sessions. The resulting album, Joint Control, appeared in September 2016. In 2017 Jones collaborated with Pete Berryman and Simeon Jones on the project Come What May.