"Loving crafted from English fine bone china, and lavishly adorned with twenty-two carat gold, Jon Loomes is magnificent.
Britain's greatest everything, Loomes' unparalleled skill as a musician, artist, poet, and swordsman is second only to his proficiency in the boudoir.
Handsome, charming, witty, and modest, his hobbies include short walks to the pub, sleeping for sixteen hours a day, and spouting hyperbole in the third person."
Performing internationally since the age of sixteen, Loomes has toured all over the world. Taught piano by a line of composers stretching back to Beethoven, Loomes embraced traditional music when he realised how much free beer was available at his local folk sessions.
These days he takes a more holistic approach and plays a bit of everything. Primarily famous for playing guitar in a variety of cruel and unusual tunings, he also performs on cittern, mandolin, mandola, bouzouki, five string banjo, piano, violin, viola, English concertina, melodeon, bagpipes, and hurdy gurdy.
He was a Musicians' Union Representative on the Folk, Roots and Trad Section Committee which successfully campaigned against the infamous "Two in a bar" legislation.
"A blackened shroud, a hand-me-down gown..."
Ely Folk Festival
FolkEast 2023
Loomes news. Songs of passion and violence, powerful yet delicate works for mighty orchestras, performances, writings, artworks, fine musical instruments, record production, poetry, philosophy, something familiar ,something peculiar, stunning surprises, cunning disguises, pantaloons and tunics, courtesans and eunuchs, funerals and chases, baritones and basses, panderers, philanderers, cupidity, timidity, rhymes, mimes, tumblers, grumblers, bumblers, fumblers, tragedy tomorrow - comedy tonight!
If I made another album,
(Though the notion is absurd)
I’d bestride the tarmacadam
Just in front of Abbey Road.
I would make a concept album,
And the concept would be otters.
Otters don’t have many albums
And I’m told by otter spotters
That the otter is forgotten by the men in A & R
So I’d start right at the bottom,
With an otter.
And a guitar.
'"Through smoke and fire..." - Chippenham Folk Festival
"She sung to the wind, and she sung to the waves..."
