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Monday, 25 April 2022

Keeping Up with the Joneses - Nic

 


A change of genre this week to folk and a change that I'm sure will meet with  the approval from George and many others.

Nic Jones' 1980 album on the  Topic label Penguin Eggs was voted the 2nd best folk album of all time on the BBC Radio 2 Mike Harding Folk Show - second only to  the recently featured Fairport Convention's Liege and Leaf.

Nic first crossed my radar  having watched an inspiring documentary on BBC4  (The Enigma of Nic Jones - Return of Britain's Lost Folk Hero ) on his recovery from a serious road accident in 1982 which resulted in many broken bones and temporary paralysis. 

I thought after watching it that I would make it my business to acquire Penguin Eggs and what a terrific album it is too- 9 tracks.  While not quite a concept album there is very much a nautical feel to many of the songs and it is pretty traditional in nature even although  he puts his own stamp on them.

Allmusic has described the album as one of those rare records where not just every song, but each instrumental part is worth hearing

For those like me wondering as to the origin of the album title look no further than the lyrics of  the track The Little Pot Stove where for the crew of a whaling ship fresh penguin eggs were seen as a culinary luxury.
Despite permanent injuries following his accident which have impinged on his guitar playing and stopped him playing the  fiddle he  made a welcome return to music as part of  the Nic Jones Trio -with his son Joe amd Belinda O'Hooley and as a duo with his son. He is now 75 and I am not aware as to any recent activity. Given his injuries I hope he is enjoying as healthy a retirement as he can.

The above is essentailly a re-hash of  posts I did in August 2014 and  June 2021 I haven't really anything more to add




Apologies  to the few who still be reading my No Depression posts for the absence yesterday. The feature required a little bit of research that I had neither thre time nor the inclination to do. 

I am now off on safari for a few days so nothing to see until the weekend, at the earliest

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6 comments:

  1. Ernie Goggins25 April 2022 at 08:43

    Happy travels CC, may you find many Jones related records while you are away

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  2. George25 April 2022 at 08:48

    Fantastic choice, it is one of my favourite albums.
    ps ANOTHER HOLIDAY?

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  3. The Swede25 April 2022 at 08:57

    As I probably commented on one of your previous Nic Jones posts, I consider myself a very lucky man to have been in the audience for one of those brief run of comeback shows in 2014.
    Have a successful few days of rummaging.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Spence30 April 2022 at 01:09

    This is going to make me sound a proper wet behind the ears folk ingenue here but I hadn't heard of Nic Jones before or at least taken him in. Just done a little digging - he even did a Peel session for heaven's sake which should have put him on my map. Loved these tracks so will investigate further. Great post

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