Jez Lowe & The Bad Pennies
Folk and acoustic music is undoubtedly enjoying something of a renaissance at the moment, and Newcastle-based singer-songwriter Jez Lowe is among those enjoying the benefits of this rebirth. He has a new album just out, his 14th set of original songs of the North Country, And he has just completed a two month tour of North America and Canada, the BBC’s "Radio Ballads" - to which he contributed twenty-odd songs last year- has just won a Sony Radio Award.
For the last twenty years, Jez has toured the world, building up a formidable reputation in the USA, Australia and Europe, and gaining the respect of his peers and his audience alike. Folk supremo Richard Thompson called him "The best songwriter to emerge from the UK in a long time", and his songs are among the most widely sung by folksingers and bands around the country’s clubs and festivals.
His new album is called JACK COMMON’S ANTHEM, and was inspired by the cult Geordie novelist of that name, who’s work chronicled life in the North East in the early 20th Century. Jez Lowe has taken up that same torch a hundred years later, in a selection of songs that reflect the hard times, the good times, the hard work and hard play of the region where he was born and raised.
The CD finds Lowe once more backed by his long-time band The Bad Pennies, but this time aided and abetted by Exeter-based producer Steve Knightley and engineer Phil Beer, who together form the UK’s leading acoustic duo, Show of Hands. Very much a co-operative effort by all those on board, this is a unique meeting of North East and South West, and the shower of praise and good reviews that have greeted it’s release prove that it has been a winning combination.
