NIC  JONES  PAGE 2

Dave Arthur introduced Nic Jones in these words (taken from the sleeve notes of the first solo album, Ballads and Songs):

If you are reading this without having heard Nic Jones, we advise you to buy this record. If you have heard Nic, you will have bought the record, and we are preaching to the converted. This is his first solo LP since leaving the Halliard, a group now disbanded. It wasn't until Nic left the group to work on his own that it became apparent that here was one of the people the folk revival occasionally throws up; a singer destined to be emulated by aspiring young singers all over the country, a person whose singing style, instrumental work and repertoire, Is instantly recognisable. Around the revival there seems to be an increase in complicated accompaniment. When this happens the words usually suffer. Nic is one of that small band of folk schizophrenics, who can play the most complex rhythms, and sing in another rhythm across this without loss of interpretation or legibility of the lyrics. We have worked together on radio, records and concerts, and apart from being an outstanding interpreter of traditional material, he is in our mind perhaps the most sympathetic and sensitive accompanist on the folk scene, particularly on the fiddle, an instrument few people know he even plays, and about which he is exasperatingly modest. Apart from all this he has written some beautiful tunes to traditional words. Nic and his wife Julia live in Essex, where he runs two very successful clubs. He is a person who is destined to acquire recognition and esteem, and a person with whom we are pleased to be in the same line of work. - 1970