Named for a street in Birmingham, the site of Swordfish Records and where the teenage Jon Wilks would busk, while not rooted in his hometown, Needless Alley is formed from his musical influences of the time, among them Paul Simon, Pentangle, Nick Drake and Bob Dylan, whose Highway 61 Revisited sparked the idea of what might happen on the titular thoroughfare. Described as a patchwork of memories and marking a more autobiographical approach to his writing after previous trad folk-inclined material, he’s backed by his regular Grizzly Folk cohort of Jon Nice (keyboards, guitars), Rich Davies (bass) and Laurence Hunt (drums) with Albert Hansell on melodeon.
Jackie Oates and Joe Sartin on backing vocals, it opens with the circling fingerpicked melody and shuffling drums of the staccato punctuated Could You Be The One? a montage of images that may or may not be a love song (“Stars light up your eyes/And the moon glows over your bones /And lights up the night/So who would sleep with the window closed/To keep out the night?…Sharp is the breeze/As it murders out in the darkness/And takes on the seas/But who wouldn’t take on the darkening night/Just to be here with you?”), though the lines “You blinked once and the years went by/They were the long, cruel days and the crueller nights/When you were looking for the loving kind/But you slipped up once and fell out of time/And then one day when the weather changed/And you weren’t caught up in your stuff again/You allowed yourself to see” are decidedly more enigmatic.
Jealousy-fuelled paranoia provides the theme for the heavily slow, deep acoustic guitar framed and cymbals-brushed Gotta Keep An Eye On My Lover (“She was born to light up this town/Every night of her life/I’ve discovered…Waiting up till the dawn/Watch her creep up the lawn…Take down the name/An acquaintance you say?/Keep it hush-hush/Ask no questions, and I’ll do the same”) with its Bert Jansch hints.
A co-write with Ellie Gowers who adds guest vocals, the friskier Strung Out On The Line with its mingling of Simon and 60s English folk reflects on the stories we tell ourselves about the past (“I chased you down a dusky lane/Until you hopped the garden gate/Where the old river flows/That’s where I ran out of road”) and the way it won’t let go (“There’s no rhyme or reason/For the wanting of the days gone by/Turning through the seasons/We’re just memories of memories in time/Patterns fade and I’m strung out on the line”) as he ponders “Do you ever think of me??Am I in your frame of mind?/Do you remember me at all/Now a person so hard to find?”.
Lukas Drinkwater on double bass, the only non-original and more traditional folk number on the album is Montagu Whaler, written in the latter half of the 20th century by Nigel Bruen, which Wilks first heard via a Shep Wooley recording, and tells of a type of boat used by the Royal Navy from the 1900s to 1960s, the song (chiming with the prevailing theme of the past) lamenting how they fell into disrepair (“You’re the last galliot/You’ve been left here to rot/Now who’s going to save you for me?”), though Wilks’ recording has sparked a renovation project at the Portsmouth Historic Dockyards.
The oldest song on the album, dating from in his early 20s and sung between Jansch and Davey Graham covers in a North Wales folk club, Wilks on organ, a sort of talking blues, You’ll Do Right By Me is another of a romance persuasion, here of ships that almost pass in the night (“She said, “meet me in the bar/We’ll see double before the night is over/We’ll see double before we see sense”…Oh, for a taxi home by 10/She said, “fine/Or you could spend the night with me/But be prepared for the possibilities”/When I think of time/Well, I think of how it almost passed me by”).
Tamsin Elliott on accordion and Irish whistle with Wilks playing bass and piano, the jerky rhythm (almost a calypso) title track follows with stream of consciousness lyrics (“I played out last night/And in the aftermath/Somebody got the trouble out/I woke up in the bath/Man did I feel lonely/Boy did I feel blue/I never felt so dusty/I only thought of you… Today I woke up in a mess/Lipstick on my chest/I haven’t seen the offender/I’m under house arrest”) with a punning play on the title (“If you’ve got no use for this/And the world seems heedless/Tie it up in a duffel bag/And send it down to Needless”).
Clocking in at a tad over five minutes, the walking beat, guitar chiming, summery-shimmering Song For A Friend with memories again bubbling up (“here I am/In our younger days/Memories cycle down alleyways and I/Find myself at your door again”), is, the sentiments reminiscent of Nico’s I’ll Keep It With Mine, fairly self-explanatory as he sings “We can’t count on the years/To keep us in time/Should you ever feel lost or alone/Keep me in mind”.
Bringing an ironic festive tone to the melody, Nick Hart on viola da gamba, All On A Solstice Night is his contribution to the Christmas canon, though not one celebrating the season of peace and goodwill as “we’re swallowed up by weather/By climate and by fear” and there’s “foul play in the air/There are drones up in the heavens/That’s not a guiding star/It’s an angel from the death brigade/And it’s following my car”. Wilks quietly vents his spleen with “God bless the megalomaniacs/And the moneylenders, all/There’s nothing wrong with profit/Forever heed the call/But when you’re worth the GDP/Of nations large and small/You’ve slipped the bonds of morality/And you have no worth at all”.
Kai Wilks on electric rhythm guitar, the swaying but slightly discordant Mine Is The Sun somewhat rebalances the mood with nature’s open arms (“Mine is the light on the barley/That undulates softly/And spills like an ocean/Over the churchyard/On long summer nights/The sky is a painting/In gold and vermilion/Stretched out forever/It asks us for nothing”) and an invitation to “kick off your traveling boots”, a welcome even for those of darker hearts (“Mine is the hush/Yours is the hustle/The sale of the sacred/For shares and for dividends…Slip on your sensible shoes/Drink a full glass/And lose yourself easily”), but also a warning that the Earth won’t necessarily turn the other cheek (“A hole in the clay/ Unmarked and shapeless/Expectant and hungry/An eye for an eye/At the dawn of the day”).
Inspired by the untimely passing of a family member, it ends with the solo guitar fingerpicked instrumental Willow, a melding of folk, blues and ragtime that reminds us that, as a guitarist, Wilks fully deserves his place alongside names such as Jansch, Carthy and Simpson. Songs from his mental attic, he says, the album is what you’d find if you rummaged around in his head for an afternoon. It’s definitely somewhere well worth exploring.
‘Needless Alley’ (19th September 2025) Grizzly Folk Records
NEEDLESS ALLEY NATIONAL UK TOUR DATES 2025
Solo unless otherwise stated. Band shows are listed as Jon Wilks & The Grizzly Folk.
Tickets: https://jonwilks.online/gigs
September
Sept 21 Peggy’s Skylight, NOTTINGHAM
October
Oct 3 The Hen & Chicken, BRISTOL – Jon Wilks & The Grizzly Folk
Oct 4 Whitchurch Folk Club, Whitchurch, HAMPSHIRE – Jon Wilks & The Grizzly Folk
Oct 6 Green Note, LONDON
Oct 9 Rosslyn Court, MARGATE
Oct 10 The Brunswick, BRIGHTON & HOVE – Jon Wilks & The Grizzly Folk
Oct 11 Winscombe Folk Club, Winscombe, SOMERSET
Oct 15 Willows Folk Club, Kirkham, LANCASHIRE
Oct 16 Café #9, SHEFFIELD
Oct 23 The Bear Club, LUTON
Oct 24 Sheepdip Sessions, Harbury, WARWICKSHIRE
Oct 25 St Mary’s Church Hall, MARLBOROUGH
Oct 26 The Prince Albert, STROUD
Oct 29 Red Lion Folk Club, BIRMINGHAM
November
Nov 3 Colchester Arts Centre, COLCHESTER
Nov 8 Bishop’s Castle Town Hall, Bishop’s Castle, SHROPSHIRE
Nov 14 Blaxhall Sessions, Blaxhall Village Hall, Blaxhall, SUFFOLK
Nov 15 Kett’s Books, Wymondham, NORFOLK
Nov 24 Croydon Folk Club (Ruskin House), SOUTH CROYDON
Website: https://jonwilks.online/