Tag: jolyon dixon

Stray Chords of Salisbury; How Jolyon Dixon was Reunited with Childhood Guitar

Turned around in just a day, a team of guitar “heir hunters” from Macclesfield called The Stray Chord have reunited Salisbury’s musician Jolyon Dixon with his childhood guitar, with a truly fascinating story…..

Jordan, Sarah, and Damian are a family team behind Stray Chord, who’ve spent years rescuing lost guitars from auctions, marketplace listings, trades and house clearances, in order to restore and rehome them. This has developed into a project reuniting the guitars with their original owners, and discovering the histories behind them.

They hope to create a music hub built around this unique idea, creating a space for people to connect through music and creativity. “Once we’ve raised enough, we would love to open a community-minded space with rehearsal rooms, a workshop, and a coffee and comics area,” Sarah explained. Sarah does aesthetic restoration, her husband Jordan handles technical restoration, and their son Damian runs their social media and is the “Mini Moshers” ambassador.

Stray Chord team; Sarah, Damian and Jordan

“We only started up six weeks ago, so it’s early days! In that time though, we’ve rehomed over twenty restored stray guitars, and we’re on our second Mini Moshers Promise giveaway, which is where we restore and set up a guitar and equipment bundle that we give to a child that may not otherwise be able to start their musical journey.”

On Thursday the team posted a picture on their Facebook page, of a rescued 1979 Hondo II HDLP-2WI custom-style guitar, dressed in a wine red finish, hereafter called Merlot! “While dismantling Merlot for his rehabilitation,” they revealed, “we discovered a little address label. Then another. Then another. Then a fourth. A label in every cavity!”

With a redundant Salisbury telephone number, their hunt began with just a name, and they requested for information, purely for the love of discovering the story behind the instrument. The following day they received a message from Jolyon, who recognised the guitar. His parents bought him the guitar second-hand in Salisbury in 1985, when he was 11. It was his second guitar, but loved and cherished it, and used it with his first band with school friends. He passed the guitar onto his bandmate, Jamie.

“It has been a really fun few weeks so far,” Sarah said, “and very rewarding. We’re looking forward to seeing what we can do in the next six months, but being able to find Jolyon, and the history of an almost 50 year old guitar has genuinely been a real highlight.”

John and Jolyon as Illingworth

Jolyon is the most modest local music legend I’ve met. You might have seen him backing singer Rachel Sinnetta, as part of the Illingworth duo with John Smith, at the control tower of CrownFest and other Stone Circle festivals, and he produces for the likes of George Wilding. He sent them a photograph of himself, his bandmates, and the same guitar sitting dismantled on the Stray Chord’s workbench. “At this point,” they expressed, “we were already emotional because we’re hugely sentimental people. It’s a large part of why The Stray Chord exists in the first place.”

Jolyon relayed his story to the team, from this school band to his professional career, in which he played in numerous bands and recordings, including The Who’s Endless Wire album. He told us he was quite emotional about the discovery, and explained how Jamie put the address labels in when he passed it to him. “Jamie has had a great music career,” he told us, “partly out in Australia, and is a brilliant guitarist.”

The other guitarist in the photo is John Wakefield, of whom Jolyon is still in touch with, and still owns his guitar! “John and I stayed band mates all the way through secondary school,” Jolyon told us, “and on through playing with Toyah Willcox, and then as backing for girl duo Scarlet in 1995, so we did get to do Top of the Pops together a few times, which was great!”

The story caused the Stray Chord to consider their Mini Moshers project, “because this photograph could almost have been taken to explain why we started it. Someone put a second-hand guitar into the hands of an 11-year-old. That kid formed a band. He kept playing, and more than four decades later, he’s still making music professionally and touring the world. We’re not suggesting that every Mini Mosher we give a guitar to is going to end up playing with The Who, that’s not the point! But, maybe they’ll become a professional musician, maybe they’ll form a clumsy teenage garage band with their best friends.”

Jolyon was “flabbergasted” to see his old guitar, and told the Stray Chord he often thought of the guitar and where it might have gone. Though he plans a trip up to Macclesfield to visit it, and the Stray Chord gang, he feels, “it’d be best for someone new to take the guitar into its next chapter; I’ve got too many now!!”

“I’m really happy to see that the guitar is still alive and well,” Jolyon stated, “and I hope the next owner enjoys it as much as 11 year old me did!”

As for the Stray Chord’s Mini Moshers, the promise is “if there’s a young person in your life who dreams about playing guitar, please go and nominate them. We rescue guitars because we’re sentimental. We restore them because we think their stories are worth continuing. We rehome them because somewhere out there is another pair of hands ready to write their next chapter.”

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Flora Fiora Kicking the Tyres

Chedworth, Gloucestershire; proud village soloist, songwriter and model Flora Fiora is kicking the tyres and smashing windows in with a new single, and it’s about…

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Pitstop at Air Ambulance Fundraising Mini-festival at The Three Crowns Devizes 

Rude to walk into an event sporting another event wristband but the welcome was friendly as ever at the Three Crowns in Devizes. It’s mid-afternoon, Park Farm Festival‘s shuttle bus took me into town, cheekily I used it to poke my nose into the Air Ambulance fundraiser here, their first real multi-act day, I believe, save perhaps my 50th birthday, which if you remember any details of, you could always fill me in!

It was a necessity, if only to see Ruby Darbyshire, as it’s been a while, not a long while, but long enough for me. First time playing the venue and she went down a storm, unsurprisingly. Such a rich, natural talent, vocals made from silk, expressive and  forever a joy to listen to; be they either covers, a Portishead one being a particularly breathtaking one, or her intelligently constructed originals, of which she dropped a couple of new ones I’m eager to review here in good time.

There were hugs all round upon my entrance; Ben Borrill and Pat Ward finished a set as Matchbox Mutiny, a shame to miss, because those gorgeously talented guys pull a crowd and hold them. At the moment I did arrive I was delighted to catch Rachel Sinnetta & Jolyon Dixon doing their thing with Andy Fellows accompanying on guitar, as it’s always impressive and highly entertaining. It was a stellar lineup with cupcakes, lollipops, children’s face-painting, and tried and tested acts at the Three Crowns, save Ruby, who I’m assured would be welcomed back.

Rumour was Devizes Male Choir was intending to do a flash mob bit between Ruby and the grand finale, the ever lively Funked-Up. Unsure if this happened, as unfortunately, I was duty bound to return to Park Festival, but you can rest assured Funked-Up got the crowds dancing the night away. I wish I could’ve stayed.

The spirit of The Three Crowns remains toppermost in town; the go-to pub in Devizes for a good night, an unpretentious, friendly atmosphere with the widest age demographic which never clashes. It’s trouble-free fun, it’s live music program set to enthral, and not forgetting gourmet burgers; it’s an all-round winner on any night, but more of this all-day stuff, please kind sir!  

Free Charity Fundraising Festival at The Three Crowns Devizes

With the Three Crowns being the liveliest pub in Devizes for some years now with live music every weekend and the Brewery Shop as a new neighbour, it seems sensible to upgrade the idea to a free Wadworth mini fundraising festival ….yay!

On Saturday 12th July The Three Crowns will pull all stocks out, with a free mini-festival supporting Wiltshire Air Ambulance and Julia’s House. Wadworth has a beer tasting table, Chirton School is doing a cake sale, and they promise other stalls. The music starts at 11am with a children’s disco and face painting until 1pm.

The best tried and tested locally sourced music lineup includes Matchbox Mutiny, who starts the music proceedings at 2pm, followed by Jolyon Dixon and Rachel Sinnetta at 3:15pm. Ruby Darbyshire at 4:15pm. Headliners Funked Up at 7pm.

Agreed, there’s a gap between Ruby and Funked Up – maybe there’s something they’ve forgotten to tell me, maybe it’s a surprise, or maybe it’ll be time to grab one of their fantastic gourmet burgers?!

Salisbury’s Rosie Jay Releases Debut EP

Salisbury acoustic singer-songwriter Rosie Jay released her debut EP today, taking its title from her first single from June this year, I Don’t Give a Damn. Thing being, I do, I give much more than a damn about Rosie’s musical outpourings, because this doesn’t sound like a debut EP from a nervous teenager warbling immature ruminations. This sounds like an accomplished artist who’s been with an agent, producer and mainstream record label for eons, and established a name for themselves by acquiring the skill to balance a hook and identifiable narrative, and compose them into a beautifully stylised sound….

Rosie’s been working with producer Joylon Dixon on these four tunes, and it shows. Likely a perfect match, for this is faultlessly fresh, like Kirsty MacColl in her prime; a comparison I’ve used before for Rosie, and though a high accolade, it’s fully deserved. For there is nothing to dislike here, the mood is breezy, the prose is thoughtful, both reaching out to her generation, while maintaining the classic template for acoustic folk rock for all to appreciate.

Beginning with her heartfelt breakup song, I Don’t Give a Damn, the opening has this easy to sing along to chorus, but defines the potent melancholic and ironic thought pattern of the victim of a relationship breakdown in its verses. Akin to Sinead O’Connor’s Nothing Compares 2U, and just as expressly delivered.

For Rosie’s voice is magnetism, flowing gracefully and earnestly, but the whole composition suits this, perhaps with no better example than the second tune, also the second single released, Sing Another Love Song. As it sounds this is a flowing, more positive angle yet while there’s still a clever hook, in so much as McCartney’s ironic Silly Love Songs conveys the opposite effect.

If I preferred this song from the debut at the time, the next two, so far unreleased tracks, proves Rosie though beginning with a firm base, her songs will improve each time. Mind Fuckery is her magnum opus, but only to date. Isolation and affliction brought about by addiction is spelt out in the imperfections Rosie compares within herself and her generation. Again, we’re sneaking through an open door into Rosie’s mindscape, and it’s a poignant landscape of intense pensive and evocative prose.

The measure of a good singer-songwriter is when a listener feels like they bring a little subconscious of the artist back with them, the notion they identified and made a friend through their performance, as if they knew this person all along. I had been reviewing Rosie’s singles for a few months before finally meeting her. When I did, it was exactly like this, it felt as if I had known her for ages, because even at this young age she projects herself, her thought processes and emotions so utterly exquisitely through this beautiful music. The final tune, well, despite all that’s been before, Carry Me, is the most graceful yet.

The final song is angelic, and steeped in astute metaphors Rosie faces her “personal battle,” it is, just as the other three songs, an emotive treasure wrapped in sublimity. There’s something standalone in the simplicity of person with guitar; the stripped back diploma for a musician, the final exam, and Rosie passed with flying colours. She should be setting the exam rather than taking it! What an amazing start.

Just as I’ve seen the careers of profoundly talented local artists like George Wilding, Tamsin Quin, Kirsty Clinch and Jamie R Hawkins progress from first reporting on them, I have high hopes for many of our aspiring newcomers, from Ruby Darbyshire to Meg and Harmony. Rosie Jay is high among these others, and based on the excellence of this EP I see no reason not to compare her to the likes of Elkie Brooks, The Beautiful South or Cerys Matthews. You simply have to allow yourself a quarter of an hour to take this in, released on all streaming platforms and as a CD. Follow Rosie on Insta. TikTok. YouTube. There’s an EP launch party at the Winchester Gate in Salisbury, tonight.

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JP Oldfield’s Saltwater Gospel

Devizes favourite southern fried gothic-Delta blues one man band, JP Oldfield has an EP released at the end of the week, Saltwater Gospel. It’s…

Jess Chiver’s Sunrise Comparison

I’ve found myself sympathising about post-punk recently, how they scrambled around in the dark somewhat, taking pot shots at reggae, claiming a “new wave,”…

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Rachel Sinnetta & Rosie Jay at the Crown, Bishops Cannings

Must confess it felt somewhat odd to return to The Crown in Bishops Cannings for my weekly ration of live music. The only pub in the village has been closed a short while, since verbal pitchforks and torches from a crotchety minority who wanted the tavern to be little more than a museum artefact drove the previous landlords out…..

Prior it was a bustling community hub run immaculately with gusto and enthusiasm, hosting a variety of events and raising funds for charities. Seemed crabby witches and even a lord of a manor were prepared to gang-up, lie to police, and misquote Devizine when we failed to appeal to their better nature. It backfired, they didn’t own one, but let’s not dwell.

New landlords are in, pleasant and keen to maintain the pub’s reputation amidst the prying Karens. Sarah, the new landlady praised her new chefs, and the pub hosts an open mic every first Thursday of the month, Tuesday evening quizzes, and intends to begin a men’s mental health group and possibly a football team.

Tonight, however, will be the new owners first live music night, and they’ve wisely hoisted in promoters Wiltshire Music Events to organise it. Though without much advertising unfortunately the crowd was slight. Never the simple accomplishment it may seem when established venues have the monopoly through a regularity of gigs, to sporadically host will require endless bashing about it on social media. It is, however, easier with the increased 49 bus service, that a night bus will drop into villages enroute, of which you should take note.

I’m in attendance not only to support and encourage the importance of entertainment in villages, save the thought of losing your local watering hole. Rather it is because Wiltshire Music Events is hosting two new acts on their roster, one who’ve yet to explore outside of their Salisbury circuit. A wise choice being the neighbouring church is a mini replica of the cathedral to make the bishop feel at home in the Cannings, or at least so the myth goes!

Firstly, in support, young singer-songwriter Rosie Jay, one I’ve been dying to meet and see live since fondly reviewing her first two singles. Rosie didn’t disappoint despite the pedestal I’ve put her on. Her self-penned songs are rippled with the poignancy of the classic template acoustic wordsmiths who made it big will follow; concentration on the hook, something even more essential with the attention span of the Tik-Tok generation.

Her voice is rich, affectionate, and she delivers songs with passion and blossoming stage presence. An interesting choice of covers from a young artist, often, she explained to the audience, inspired by their usage in films. Okay, Elvis’ Can’t Help Falling in Love is timeless romantic, and The Cranberries’ Zombie is most formulaic, but Dylan’s It Ain’t Me Babe, is a cynical rare choice to pull from her magician’s hat. Though it relates in theme to Rosie’s first song, I Don’t Give a Damn, and her general subjects. Rosie nailed them all, beautifully, with particular evocative expressions in the reclusive and heartfelt jaundiced emotions of Dylan, and likewise her own intelligent compositions.

Currently pursuing a Level 3 Diploma in Music at Wiltshire College and University Centre, Rosie told me of her work on local radio, and was enthusiastic about her forthcoming EP. Part of the growing Wiltshire Music Events family now, as Joylon Dixon has worked with her to produce it. And Joylon accompanies the next performer, the incredible Rachel Sinnetta.

Renowned for a two-year stint supporting Gerry & The Pacemakers, singing to Prince William and recording with Pete Townshend, Rachel intended to tour a  “Wuthering Heights: The Music of Kate Bush,” project which unfortunately fell through.

Music teacher Rachel  set to tour this tribute extensively throughout the UK; that’s what the blurb told me. All I know is Kate Bush is the vocal epitome of singularity, the individuality debatably overlooked in today’s pop industry, as the penchant to sound akin to Whitney Houston seems paramount.

Just like Dolly, Cher, Tina Turner, Stevie Nicks, Tom Jones, Alanis Morissette, even KT Tunstall et al, you need a seriously powerful vocal range to convincingly take on a Kate Bush cover. And Rachel did, sublimely delivering Running Up That Hill, and popular hits of all the aforementioned. Seemingly having her own deal with god, Rachel naturally reaches the notes with ease, her husky yet divine rock voice is the eloquence and faculty able to adapt to take those powerhouse ballads on with such precision and poignancy, particularly with the female giants. She even rinsed Arthea Franklin’s Natural Women, and left me tingling, Chaka Khan’s Ain’t Nobody too simply wowed. Proud Mary in the key of Tina Turner; who would dare attempt them in an intimate gig such as this?! Rachel Sinnetta made them look childsplay.

Sassy with Tom Jones’ Kiss, joyful with Erasure’s A Little Respect, covers came thick and fast, coupled with the secret legendary Jolyon Dixon without rehearsal was a match from heaven, and the whole shebang was utterly blissful; shame only us, a few regulars and their dogs were there to witness it. Such is the uphill struggle for new landlords to plant their establishment into a local music circuit, partially my reasoning for doing this blog.

So, take heed now, especially everyone in Pewsey; this wonderful formula, Rosie Jay followed by Rachel Sinnetta with Jolyon Dixon will be continued at the Royal Oak, in Pewsey, with a free gig from 8pm, next Saturday, the 19th October; they are in for a treat.

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Sing Another Love Song with Rosie Jay

Second impressive single from young Salisbury singer-songwriter Rosie Jay is released today. Sing Another Love Song; a sound of the summer…..

Her debut breakup track I Don’t Give a Damn, had an interesting hook, this has too, but is far more optimistic, and eternally beguiling. It is, technically, the better of the two, revealing a potential for eminence in its confident and outstanding delivery. 

If it hints of connotations the infatuation of the theme is one-sided on the part of the author, it’s open-ended for interpretation; maybe the love interest simply doesn’t share their passion for a good love song?! That’s their issue! 

For that’s what this is, breezy and cool, acoustic and pop-folky, with the perfect flowery scent of Kirsty MacColl in both theme, musically and vocally. Such is the magic of local producer Jolyon Dixon, to filter the inner superlative of an upcoming artist and nurture it to the forefront. And in such you’ll hear a similarity with Rosie to his duo Illingworth with John Smith, should you’ve caught them on our live music circuit. Then again, the whole gypsy-esque vibe, there’s hints of Irish, and I’m awarding the Corrs as another comparison; as with MacColl, these are high accolades indeed!

Here this now, it’ll brighten up your day. Yet, gorgeous as this song is, with the blossoming potential it displays, I believe it’ll be rudimentary in a short period of time, and the best of Rosie Jay is yet to come. You need to be here to hear it when it does. 

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