Bill Jones – Wonderful Fairytale – BRICK007CD
Worldwide Release Date 1 June 2019
Bill will be back in 2021 (two gigs still standing in Sept and Nov 2020), check the News and Gigs page for info as it comes in.
Wonderful Fairytale – the long-awaited fourth album by English folk singer/songwriter Bill Jones – breaks a fifteen-year studio silence and heralds a triumphant return for this talented artist. As FATEA magazine said, “This is an assured, perfectly sequenced, beautifully arranged and performed set of songs that speak to the listener. The playing and the singing have a gravitas and consummate power, this is a performer who has come back as a major talent”.
Bill had a great start to 2020 taking in The Ram Folk Club (Thames Ditton), The Treehouse Bookshop (Kenilworth), and a new project and three gigs as a duo with Gareth Davies-Jones as Jones & Jones: The Story & The Song. With apacked summer schedule of UK festivals and a USA mid-west tour ahead, in March 2020 everything disappeared in the face of COVID-19.
Based in England’s North East but with roots in Staffordshire and India, Bill (Belinda) grew up playing jigs and reels in her dad’s ceilidh band, while singing pop and rock round the house. Her 2000 debut Turn to Me swiftly won the BBC Radio 2’s Horizon Award, and as Bill’s reputation grew, Panchpuran (2001) and Two Year Winter (2003) followed. Through Bill’s heavy touring schedule and as a third of the American/Irish/British Faire Winds trio (with Anne Hills and Aoife Clancy) Bill built a reputation as a singer with an exceptional voice and an entertaining stage presence.
And now, fifteen years after taking a short break, Bill is back, “with an exceptional album that confirms that this gifted performer still has so much to offer.” – Neil McFadyen, Folk Radio.
Wonderful Fairytale features ten original songs (some written by Bill alone, some co-written with USA folk singer Anne Hills), plus two cover songs. Many have their roots in the folk tradition, whether they use a line of a traditional song in the chorus and rally against its theme (Wonderful Fairytale) or whether they’re modern rewrites of a trad song (such as The Cold Susquehanna).
Produced and recorded by Ian Stephenson at Simpson Street Studios in Thropton, Northumberland, Wonderful Fairytale features Bill on vocals, piano and accordion, joined by JP Garde (violin/viola), Stephen Henderson (percussion), Shanti Jayasinha (flügelhorn) and Gareth Davies-Jones and Anne Hills (harmony vocals), with Ian himself on guitar and double bass.