LEGENDS OF SOHO: Wizz Jones

Influential folk and blues guitarist Wizz Jones is admired and emulated by some of folk and rock’s greatest players. He was originally inspired by hearing such great artists as Big Bill Broonzy and Ramblin’ Jack Elliot at a blues club hosted by Alexis Korner and as a teenage troubadour Wizz learnt his guitar licks from contemporaries such as Davy Graham and Long John Baldry whilst playing in the coffee bars of London’s Soho in the late 1950’s.

He then followed the time-honoured buskers’ trail from the streets of Paris to the markets of Marrakech during the 1960’s, returning to Britain with a unique acoustic guitar style, an eclectic repertoire and a ‘right hand worthy of Broonzy’!

Both Eric Clapton and Keith Richards plus a few more famous faces have all named him as an important early influence and in May 2012 Bruce Springsteen opened his Berlin show with Wizz’s song ‘When I Leave Berlin’.

Wizz was presented with a life-time achievement award at the BBC Radio Two Folk Awards in October 2019.