April 2021 update: I have no up-to-date news of Nic Jones, one of the finest and most influential English folk singers of his generation. However, it is worth recording that he did make a hugely commendable comeback, starting in 2010 after a 28-year gap.
At an event during Sidmouth Folk Week celebrating his music, he sang three songs with one of his former bands Bandoggs and spoke of taking up performance again, but singing his own songs. In 2012, backed by his son Joseph and Belinda O’Hooley, he played club and festival gigs and collected the prestigious Gold Badge of the English Folk Dance & Song Society. In 2013 he was named the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards Folk Singer of the Year. He is now 74; anyone with updates is warmly invited to post a comment …
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Check out Salut! Live’s Amazon link for music by Nic Jones or any of the other artists featured in this series.
Beyond that, let this revived episode in Salut! Live’s Song of the Day Revisited series (published in 2014) speak for itself in words used in its predecessor, Song of the Day, back in 2011 …
The story of Nic Jones is familiar to many who enjoy folk music.
Nic possessed one of the most distinctive male voices of the English folk revival: confident, warm and expressive. His guitar playing was innovative and provided both exemplary accompaniment and inspired instrumentals.
Sadly, in 1982, his career came to an abrupt end, very nearly along with his life, when a lorry pulled out of a brickworks in Cambridgeshire as he drove home after a folk club performance in Glossop. Nic went smack into it, suffering brain damage as well as broken bones.
His gradual recovery did eventually enable him to take up guitar again and sing at the 2010 Sidmouth Folk Festival during at an event devoted to his work.
I do not know how this short performance went; a comment from anyone who was there would be most welcome.
Any of a large number of the songs associated with Nic could have been chosen to illustrate this posting. I have gone for Little Pot Stove because it demonstrates the intense qualities of his voice so well, and also because it has a dreamy chorus.
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