Jez Lowe is an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 folk

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

 singer-songwriter

Singer-songwriter

Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...

. Lowe was born and raised in County Durham

County Durham

County Durham is a ceremonial county and unitary district in north east England. The county town is Durham. The largest settlement in the ceremonial county is the town of Darlington...

, in a coal mining

Coal mining

The goal of coal mining is to obtain coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content, and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United States,...

 family with Irish

Irish people

The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...

 roots. He is known primarily for his compositions dealing with daily life in North-East England, particularly in his hometown of Easington Colliery

Easington Colliery

Easington Colliery is an old coal mining town in County Durham, in England. It is situated to the north of Horden, and a short distance to the east of Easington Village. The town is known for a mining accident or disaster which occurred, on 29 May 1951 when an explosion in the mine resulted in the...

. He performs both as a solo artist and with his backing band, The Bad Pennies. In addition to singing his songs, Lowe accompanies himself and The Bad Pennies on guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

, harmonica

Harmonica

The harmonica, also called harp, French harp, blues harp, and mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes or multiple holes...

, cittern

Cittern

The cittern or cither is a stringed instrument dating from the Renaissance. Modern scholars debate its exact history, but it is generally accepted that it is descended from the Medieval Citole, or Cytole. It looks much like the modern-day flat-back mandolin and the modern Irish bouzouki and cittern...

, and piano

Piano

The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...

.

Songwriting

He grew up witnessing the decline of the coal-mining industry that had defined the region's economic profile for generations. A great many of Lowe's compositions address the economic distress that the North Country has suffered as a result of this industrial decline, and the social repercussions thereof. "Galloway

Pit pony

A pit pony was a type of pony commonly used underground in coal mines from the mid 18th up until the mid 20th century.-History:Ponies began to be used underground, often replacing child or female labour, as distances from pit head to coal face became greater...

s," "Nearer to Nettles

Four Loom Weaver

Four Loom Weaver , probably derived from "The Poor Cotton Weaver" is a 19th-century English lament on starvation. One source also names it Jone o Grinfilt though this title usually refers to different lyrics and score, which is about the naiveté of country folk...

," and "These Coal Town Days" are among the songs that directly address economic conditions. In the much larger category of social impact songs, well known Lowe compositions are "Big Meeting Day

Durham Miners' Gala

The Durham Miners' Gala is a large annual gathering held on the second Saturday in July in the city of Durham, England. It is associated with the coal mining heritage of the Durham Coalfield, which stretched throughout the traditional County of Durham. It is also locally called "The Big Meeting"...

," "Greek Lightning," and "Last of the Widows." (His song, "Last of the Widows", was written in 1991 to mark the fortieth anniversary of the pit disaster at Easington Colliery.) Numerous other songs by Lowe deal with the general issues of poverty and limited social opportunity in the region. This may give the impression that Lowe is a deadly serious singer-songwriter and he is, but the seriousness is leavened by an ever-present sense of humour.

Recent projects

In 2006 Lowe contributed to the BBC Radio 2 'Radio Ballads' documentary series broadcast on Radio 2 as a homage to the original series of the same title pioneered by Ewan MacColl

Ewan MacColl

Ewan MacColl was an English folk singer, songwriter, socialist, actor, poet, playwright, and record producer. He was married to theatre director Joan Littlewood, and later to American folksinger Peggy Seeger. He collaborated with Littlewood in the theatre and with Seeger in folk music...

 and Charles Parker in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Jez Lowe was commissioned to write 22 new songs for the documentary-folk series, which were not all performed by Lowe but featured guest vocals from the likes of Barry Coope, Bob Fox and many more. The series went on to win two Sony Radio Academy Awards.

In 2008 Lowe was nominated as 'Folksinger of the Year'in the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, but ultimately lost the category to young Scottish singer and instrumentalist Julie Fowlis

Julie Fowlis

Julie Fowlis is a Scottish folk singer and multi-instrumentalist who sings primarily in Scottish Gaelic.-Musical career:Fowlis grew up in North Uist, an island in the Outer Hebrides, in a Gaelic-speaking community, and has been involved in singing, piping and dancing since she was a child.She is a...

.

Most recently in March 2009 Lowe was invited to collaborate with seven other songwriters on the prestigious 'Darwin Song Project

Darwin Song Project

Darwin Song Project is a compilation album, released on September 7, 2009. It features folk artists from the UK and North America, who were tasked with the creation of new songs that had a "resonance and relevance to Charles Darwin". The artists gathered together for 7 days in a farmhouse in...

' co-ordinated by Shrewsbury Folk Festival

Shrewsbury Folk Festival

Shrewsbury Folk Festival is an annual festival of folk and world music and traditional dance held in the town of Shrewsbury in Shropshire, England....

 in celebration of local connections to Darwin

Charles Darwin

Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...

's birthplace in the bi-centennial year of his birth. The songwriting project has been the subject of a featured documentary programme on BBC Radio 4 and Mike Harding

Mike Harding

Mike Harding is an English singer, songwriter, comedian, author, poet and broadcaster. He is known as 'The Rochdale Cowboy' after one of his hit records...

 hosted folk programme on BBC Radio 2.

Albums

(N.B. This list is not yet comprehensive. Dates given are for original releases.)

As Jez Lowe and the Bad Pennies

• Wotcheor (2010)
• Northern Echoes - Live on the Tyne (2008)
• Tantobie Twinset - Parish Notices + Honesty Box (2007)
• Doolally (2004)
• Honesty Box (2002)
• Fighting the Tide (2001)
• Live at the Davy Lamp (2000)
• The Parish Notices (1998)
• Tenterhooks (1995)
• Bede Weeps (1993)
• Briefly on the Street (1990)

As Jez Lowe

• Jack Common's Anthem (2007)
• Bad Penny (1988)
• Galloways (1985)
• The Old Durham Road (1983)
• Jez Lowe (1980)

Collaborative albums

• Jake Walton & Jez Lowe - Two a Roue (1986)

DVDs

• Sight Rhymes - Jez Lowe & the Bad Pennies (2007)

External links