THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,293) Wizz Jones — “Beggar Man”
Gee wizz, Wizz Jones , “[o]ne of the founding fathers of folk in the UK, cutting a dishevelled figure with a beatup acoustic guitar, and influential to many who have followed in his footsteps . . . should be regarded as the best folk guitarist [the UK] has ever produced.” (Paul Rigby, https://recordcollectormag.com/reviews/album/the-legendary-me) His third album — The Legendary Me — includes “Jones’ beautiful interpretations of [eight of] British writer Alan Turnbridge’s … songs include ‘Dazzling Stranger’ [see #743] and [today’s pick] ‘Beggar Man.’ The work of a gentle spirit with a light, lyrical, irreverent touch that belies his interpretive skill and superb guitar work.” (Paul Rigby, https://recordcollectormag.com/reviews/album/the-legendary-me) “Ex-Famous Jug Band member Peter Berryman . . . helps weaving the intertwined guitar textures which along with the unexpected tempo changes make ‘Beggar Man’ so compelling”. (comusduke, https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/wizz-jones/the-legendary-me/)
Of the LP, Luca Ricatti writes (courtesy of Google Translate):
The Legendary Me was released in 1970. . . . All beautiful songs, played with an uncommon lightness and sensitivity and in which Wizz Jones shows that he is truly an excellent guitarist. . . . Tunbridge’s compositions are certainly the backbone of the album, beautiful lyrics, beautiful melodies. But the interpretations constitute a notable added value, also because Jones sings well. Among these jewels stand out . . . “Beggar Man” [and] “Dazzling Stranger” . . . .
Thom Jurek gives us some wizztory:
With its many leaves and branches, the English folk scene is traceable to a few gnarly yet enduring taproots. . . . [and] guitarist Wizz Jones is one of them. While virtually unknown in America . . . Jones was paramount in influencing virtually every acoustic guitarist and folk scenester who came after him in the U.K. Jones began to play guitar seriously in the mid- to late ’50s after being inspired by the literature of the Beat Generation, and American blues and folk recordings . . . . Jones bore a strange figure in British coffeehouses with his uncharacteristically long hair and hobo-ish demeanor, including a guitar that was literally held together with leather straps. He knew his stuff, however, with his playing rooted deep in the Mississippi Delta and in early Chicago blues styles, and he established a reputation early among younger players who soaked up both his image and the licks he fired off from a rapid right-handed picking style that was clearly his own. . . . Embracing the Beat life, he and Clive Palmer took to busking in the streets of France for a while . . . . Back in England, Jones met banjo king Pete Stanley in 1962 and formed a bluegrass duo that released a now legendary — and highly collectible — Columbia recording called Music for Moonshiners in early 1963. The duo issued one more recording for the label called Sixteen Tons of Bluegrass before disbanding in 1966. Beginning in 1968, Jones began recording a series of albums upon which his obscure, yet legendary, modern reputation was founded. Hanging with a bunch of locals and a loose-knit band he formed called Lazy Farmer, Jones issued nine albums between 1969 and 1977 . . . .
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/wizz-jones-mn0000569646/biography
As does Jones’s website:
Raymond Ronald Jones . . . [was from] a poor working class family in Croydon which was at that time a small town . . . on the outskirts of South London. Attending Oval Primary and Junior School and later Selhurst Grammar School for boys where Jones felt well out of his depth amongst boys mainly from fairly well-off middle class professional families. Being constantly absent due to severe bouts of migraine and having to attend weekly physiotherapy exercises for a curvature of the spine he left school at the age of 16 in 1955 with meagre qualifications. Inspired by Folk and Blues music heard on BBC and European Radio, Jones began to teach himself to play the acoustic guitar. He worked for a year or so at a textile warehouse in the City of London and then at a similar establishment in the West End. On leaving home around this time he moved into a rented attic room in Porchester Square close by Marble Arch and soon discovered the delights of a bohemian life-style in Soho. . . . Wizz began his musical career at the age of 18 leading a Country and Skiffle band called “The Wranglers” in 1957. He had been inspired to take up the acoustic guitar a year or so before this after hearing such guitar luminaries as Big Bill Broonzy, Rambling Jack Elliot and Muddy Waters playing at a club in London organized by Cyril Davies and Alexis Korner . . . . Having learned most of his blues licks from Long John Baldry and Davy Graham whilst playing in the coffee bars of Soho, Wizz followed the time honoured trail – busking throughout Europe . . . . On returning to Britain in the early sixties, Wizz formed a blue-grass duo with banjo-picker Pete Stanley, a partnership which was to last for four years . . . . Wizz and Pete went their separate ways at the end of 1967 and Wizz returned to solo work collaborating with songwriter Alan Tunbridge (an artist friend from the Soho days) and occasionally with guitarist Peter Berryman. . . . [I]n spite of being often mentioned as an important early influence by artists such as Eric Clapton, John Renbourn and Ralph McTell . . . Wizz retained a certain “musician’s musician” reputation, only occasionally playing club gigs and the odd festival spot . . . .
As does Luca Ricatti (courtesy of Google Translate):
[Jones] began to frequent coffee houses and was among the first to go on small stages to play old traditional songs rearranged for guitar or blues pieces taken from records published by the American Folkways label. A sincere wandering spirit, in ’59 he took a hitchhiking trip with Alan Tunbridge , a designer he had met in the clubs of Soho. They spent the summer in Cornwall ‘roaming the beaches, writing, singing and working in hotel kitchens’. One evening he showed Alan some chords and he began to turn the poems he wrote into songs. But Alan was not a musician, he did not master his friend’s finger style technique, nor did he aspire to perform in public. . . . [H]e continued to write. And he got better and better. Although he has not composed for many years, Alan Tunbridge is perhaps better known as a songwriter than as an illustrator. Wizz instead continued his path in music. . . . [“]I went through a phase where I couldn’t believe how good Bert Jansch and John Renbourn were and thought I had to catch up with them. But then I realized that what is spontaneous is valid.” And it is certainly true, if Bert Jansch himself said of him that “he is the most underrated guitarist ever” . . . .
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