| Wizz Jones | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Raymond Ronald Jones |
| Born | April 25, 1939 |
| Origin | Thornton Heath, Croydon, Surrey, England |
| Genres | Folk music |
| Years active | late 1950s–present |
| Website | www.wizzjones.com |
| Notable instruments | |
| Guitar, Banjo | |
Raymond Ronald Jones (25 April 1939, Thornton Heath, Croydon, Surrey) better-known as Wizz Jones is an English acoustic guitarist, singer and songwriter. He has been performing since the late 1950s and recording from 1965 to the present. He has worked with many of the notable guitarists of the English folk music revival, such as John Renbourn and Bert Jansch.
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Jones became infatuated with the bohemian image of Woody Guthrie and Jack Kerouac and grew his hair long. His mother had started calling him Wizzy after the Beano comic strip character "Wizzy the Wuz" because at the age of nine Raymond was a budding Musician. The nickname stuck throughout his school years and when he formed his first band "The Wranglers" in 1957 the name became permanent. Bert Jansch later said "I think he's the most underrated guitarist ever". In the early 1960s he went busking in Paris, France, and there mixed in an artistic circle that included Rod Stewart, Alex Campbell, Clive Palmer (Incredible String Band) and Ralph McTell. After a couple of years in Paris he married and returned to England to raise a family.
In 1965 his only single was released: Bob Dylan's "Ballad of Hollis Brown". By this time the skiffle boom was over but one of the stars of that movement, Chas McDevitt, used Jones' guitar-playing on five albums in 1965 and 1966. Another musician on those sessions was the bluegrass banjo-player, Pete Stanley. In 1966 Jones and Stanley released an album Sixteen Tons of Bluegrass,[1] but this partnership broke down in 1967, as Jones then turned solo.
Jones started to became a singer-songwriter. His first solo album was Wizz Jones in 1969. Up to 1988, ten solo albums followed and he played on Ralph McTell’s single "Easy" in 1974. In a way Ralph was repaying Wizz for his help in getting McTell established on the scene, Steve Tilston was also guided by Wizz, through the easy stages of his career. Wizz was once described a having 'a right hand worthy of Broonzy', the Broonzy in question is of course legendary Country Blues Guitarist Big Bill Broonzy. Most of his recordings from this period are long out of print.
A brief excursion as a member of the traditional folk band Lazy Farmer in 1975 produced an album that was reissued in 2006. Wizz has always maintained a high level of popularity in Germany, since the mid - 1970's, he stills tours mainland Europe every year. The early 1990s were a quiet period. He almost disappeared from public view.
When in the mid-nineties he appeared on the Bert Jansch television documentary Acoustic Routes, there was renewed interest in his work. In 2001 he led John Renbourn and other members of Pentangle on the album Lucky The Man. In 2007 The Legendary Me and When I Leave Berlin were reissued on CD by the Sunbeam record label.
(*) with John Renbourn and others. (**) with Bert Jansch. (***) includes recordings from 1970-74. (****) with Simeon Jones.