Search - Pete Stanley & Wizz Jones;Wizz Jones & Pete Stanley :: More Than 16 Tons of Bluegrass & Other Fine Stuff

Wizz & Pete were probably the first British musicians to successfully interpret America's favourite traditional music for UK audiences. Both fine musicians and vocalists, during the late 50s and early 60s they rambled and gambled throughout Europe, often hitching their way around the clubs and bars. The basis of this album is their rare Columbia release, Sixteen Tons of Bluegrass, to which we have added their only single and some fine previously unissued tracks. And Wizz & Pete are getting back together for a few gigs soon! Booklet notes by Ralph McTell, with contributions from Wizz & Pete, Chas McDevitt and John Pilgrim. About the Artist Wizz Jones is an English acoustic guitarist, singer and songwriter. He has been performing since the late 1950s and recording from 1965 to the present. He has worked with many of the notable guitarists of the English folk music revival, such as John Renbourn and Bert Jansch. Jones became infatuated with the bohemian image of Woody Guthrie and Jack Kerouac and grew his hair long. His mother had started calling him Wizzy after the Beano comic strip character "Wizzy the Wuz" because at the age of nine Raymond was a budding magician. The nickname stuck throughout his school years and when he formed his first band "The Wranglers" in 1957 the name became permanent. Bert Jansch later said "I think he's the most underrated guitarist ever". In the early 1960s he went busking in Paris, France, and there mixed in an artistic circle that included Rod Stewart, Alex Campbell, Clive Palmer (Incredible String Band) and Ralph McTell. After a couple of years in Paris he married and returned to England to raise a family. In 1965 his only single was released: Bob Dylan's "Ballad of Hollis Brown". By this time the skiffle boom was over but one of the stars of that movement, Chas McDevitt, used Jones' guitar-playing on five albums in 1965 and 1966. Another musician on those sessions was the bluegrass banjo-player, Pete Stanley. In 1966 Jones and Stanley released an album Sixteen Tons of Bluegrass, but this partnership broke down in 1967, as Jones then turned solo. A major influence on a generation of guitarists such as Eric Clapton, Wizz continues to perform to this day Pete Stanley : One of England's best-known banjo players, Pete is known for his unique mellow tone, acquired by using bare fingernails rather than metal fingerpicks. Highly respected as a musician, Pete has toured with artists as varied as Roxy Music & Peta Webb.