I once booked NIC for a folk club gig; he was quiet and unassuming as well as being one of the most amazing performers I've ever seen. Although Penguin Eggs is highly regarded - and I think it wonderful too - this album is still my favourite or his
One of England's finist folk singers. Leaving hospital it twas a remedy for all ills. God rest Nic Jones for some outstanding guitar and traditional stories. Thank you 😊
I followed Nic Jones from his early days in Essex folk clubs, and had the vinyl. His accident and subsequent betrayal by his publishers. His more recent album Penguin Eggs. His return to the music scene with his son. What an amazing talent. So happy to hear Ballads and Songs after so long. 30:53
His performance of The Outlandish Knight is endlessly mesmerising. His guitarwork, especially at the beginning, the clarity and control of his voice...truly perfect.
Thanks to the BBC 4 documentary for introducing to me the natural genius of Nic jones who played and sang these folk songs with the real authenticity that they were originally delivered with
I'm just beginning to get the effect that Nic was going for with the way he tuned the strings. We all know that he tuned low to get that deep, resonant, cello-like, almost buzz-like Canadee-I-O 'signature' tone from the low notes, but it also does something quite specific to the high notes as well, which some people call 'snap' or 'ping'. Listening carefully, what I can hear is that he is going for a consistently intense level of attack, which, in conjunction with the added ping, makes the more tightly-grouped sets of high notes sound much less delicate and 'frilly' than they would typically sound: what he's doing is making the 'folky' aspects much less 'decorative'' and much more 'agressive', as if he is kind of fighting back against a widespread tendency to 'soften' folk songs (which tended to make them sound more 'romantic', or at least as 'inoffensive' as possible) and instead he seems to be wanting to make them more 'gritty' and 'realistic': he certainly doesn't shy away from songs which have hard-hitting storylines. It seems to me that all of the leading 'songwriter guitarists' of the time were in some ways trying to 'revolutionise' folk in ways which were essentially efforts 'de-folkify' it. John Martyn, with his exploration of introducing 'soul music' types of treatment into his singing style and experimental rock guitar-like electronic effects into his playing, is much more frequently credited with transforming folk guitar, but it looks to me as if Nic's more subtle, less widely copied, but equally distinctive and important contributions to new developments in acoustic guitar technique are generally overlooked.
Hi Peter: I played on the folk/acoustic scene for some years, mostly in New England, and I know exactly what you're talking about. I, an ex-rocker, somewhat cynically hit the '90s folk open mics and shocked most with my energetic approach. It was pretty raw in the beginning, but I refined it over the years./ I chanced upon Nic via a RU-vid Folk queue while I was writing and he (and The Spurgins) pricked up my ears./ Not surpisingly, I read up on him and he has rock roots as did Dylan, Ian Tyson, Alice Stuart, etc. I assimilated some folk forms but not as well as Nic et al./ You raise interesting musical points but when it comes to trad folk, the burning issue shall always remain, how were these songs played in their time? No one can say for sure, but my own theory is that folk got more subdued in the '70s (esp. as it was less popular and mostly relegated to church coffeehouses and older conservative (musically) listeners. And, ironically, psych/ folk rock "acts" such as Dead, Airplane, Byrds and "Judas" (Crosby, McGuinn, Slick all ex folkies) eclipsed their first genre./ Oh I could write a book, and I did. If you care to read a brief excerot from my "novel",, will be glad to send.
@@scottdavison1420 Yeah, I always thought so, but Nic himself says he was first influenced by John Martyn. We know that Bridget St. John was the first to be directly influenced by John because he took her under his wing as his first protege, and her playing is much more like John's than Nic's is. Bert Jansch is the other big influence on 'folk revival' guitarists of that time. It's quite ironic that Nic's 'deep string tone' is the most distinctive part of his legacy (and for me, it's this that's also his strongest connection to Martin Carthy) because with John's playing it's more about how he weaves in his rhythm when he's doing melody lines (something that Bridget developed) and with Bert and Martin, it was much more about the diverse range of their source material and how that affected their playing that proved to be an inspiration. Very different guitarists, very different influences, but very strong connections.
@@jimrader5299 excellent observation. I'm Scottish, and given the sheer viciousness of some of the lyrics of these traditional ballads, it's a fair bet that the interpretations could at times be suitably vigorous. I've always felt that The Pogues' interpretation of "A Comely Gentleman Soldier" was closest to the spirit of the lyrics, for instance: "And when nine months had come and gone, the poor girl she was shamed/She had a little militia boy and she didn't know his name" etc. Another example would be the way Fairport interpret "Matty Groves". It's kind of like the difference between white blues interpretations of e.g. "Killing Floor", then when you listen to Wolf's version... All the best -
@@rolywitherow1377 Some dispute with the original publisher or something. ;-( I was lucky enough to see him live in small folk clubs in Essex. Brilliant.
@@jameswburke Not really a dispute as such, just that Dave Bulmer bought a load of recordings from Trailer & Leader labels and has basically sat on them ever since. Various artists have made offers to buy their recordings basic, he and now his estate have always refused. He’s extremely litigious to the point that when Topic released Nic’s wonderful ‘Game, Set & Match’ live collection he sued to try and prevent them despite not actually owning those recordings. Nic’s albums and the Mike/Lal Waterson masterpiece Bright Phoebus are most well known lost records, but there’s loads in a similar situation. Dick Gaughan rightly called it ‘cultural vandalism’. Bulmer & co have tried to claim costs or lack of interest are the reasons behind it, but clearly that’s nonsense. The commonly held view is it’s really just some perverse power trip.
Correction: Bulmer didn’t actually sue Topic over Game, Set & Match he just threatened to. Topic just called his bluff, but how odious to try and prevent someone releasing recordings that you didn’t even own. It was different to the Waterson familys’ attempts to get Bright Phoebus out as Bulmer sadly owns the masters and got Domino’s release of it pulled, so it’s back to being unavailable just like this. The whole thing is a travesty.
I think I might just have happened upon a clue as to why Nic goes for that 'flicked percussive string' effect in his picking style: it turns out that it might just have something relevant in common with a distinct aspect of his vocal treatment on certain phrases (you can hear it most frequently on 'The Outlandish Knight') where the last word of each phrase in a repeated lyric line (such as 'rise up, rise up', in Little Musgrave') ends on a beat: you can hear from the very particular and precise way he crisply closes the syllable in his vocalisation that Nic seems to be very much taken with just how emphatic and attention-catching that effect is (I wonder if he picked it up from anyone else?) that it strongly resembles (to my mind at least, I could easily be wrong) the same mesmerising effect of his rhythmic 'ping' from his signature rhythmic downstroke string flick. The exact sequence of him adopting these things (did the string-ping, or the staccato vocal effect come first?) is not for me, in my ignorance of the entirety of his catalogue, to even attempt to guess, but they do seem to me to have come from a kindred musical 'predisposition'. Nic's 'sources' are genuinely intriguing to me, if, for no other reason than that just a few short listens have prompted me to ask myself 'but was the rest of the folk revival ever this good?'. Things like Steeleye and the JSD band are obviously more folk rock than pure folk, with John Martyn even more 'all over the genre map', but seeing as Nic says he was first influenced by John, the very next thought is 'but upon reflection, it was just the sheer diversity of unique and original talent that was what made that era so great'.
@@briansheppard3212 Sorry Brian, from your comment it sounds like I was revealing my curiosity about something I'd spotted that might actually have been way too obvious to even bother talking about, no excuses for this, but I did put in the odd caveat about my own ignorance. Just the fact that you've taken the time to comment on my (yep, I admit, very likely inane) ramblings about Nic here makes me wonder if you've got any more genuinely interesting thoughts on anything to do with him or his work. Sorry for taking so long to reply!
Uh...Ursula, I think Annachie Gordon is a person not a place. I think Nic got the song from a Child ballad. Thank you for posting this, I have been looking for a copy for years.
I’m just seeing your comment- I think she’s asking where the song is, as in “why is it not on this album?”, not “where on Earth is the place located?”. I could be wrong, of course, but that was how I saw it. 🙂
It's good, although the recording isn't the best and you can hear that his style was still maturing at this point - there was better to come. Still, another 'missing' album from a great - thanks!
