As we prepare to welcome the arrival of Spring, multi-instrumentalist Simon J Jones has a few thoughts to share about it in this latest Folk Radio UK video exclusive.
The harp-led ‘What To Look For In Spring’ is yet another fascinating taster from Jones’s forthcoming solo album ‘How Things Work’ – a collection that celebrates vintage titles by the popular children’s publisher Ladybird.
Jones, who is better known as one third of the experimental folk song and storytelling trio Harp & a Monkey, drew inspiration for ‘What To Look For In Spring’ from the 1961 Ladybird book of the same name by E.L. Grant Watson.
The aim was to provide a guide to the unfolding delights of the season, which the multi-instrumentalist and award-winning animator and art photographer has evocatively managed to achieve through both music and imagery.
Jones explained: “I wanted to capture and celebrate a sense of the gentle re-awakening and rebirth of life. When I was a kid, one of my favourite things to do at this time of year was to go looking for frog spawn and watch it change into tadpoles and then frogs. A bit of natural magic – and most of us probably feel the need for some of that in our lives at the moment!”
To paraphrase E.L Grant, who wrote the Ladybird book ‘What To Look For In Spring’, this is the time of year when the Earth’s northern hemisphere tilts towards the sun, warming and awakening animal and plant life that has been hiding from cold winter days. A season of new beginnings, when farmers and gardeners plant their seeds and animals come out of hibernation, the season takes its name from the fact that new buds begin to bloom and “spring forth”.
How Things Work by Simon J Jones will be released on March 7th and can be pre-ordered (with additional art cards and song information) now via https://simonjohnjones.bandcamp.com/