The immortal lyric "that you don't know what you got 'till it's gone" is proving a popular quote as live music inches back into life to the extent of reaching cliche status. Another choice cliche is 'where has all the time gone' as you reflect on a gaping gap duly spanning years but seemingly feeling like a lot shorter. Diana Jones offered the first quip in the opening exchanges of this penultimate gig of a successful UK tour, while the latter drew from yours truly as thoughts turned back to the last time this singer-songwriter was personally seen at the Kitchen Garden. The year is hazy, definitely pre-dates this blog and likely in the latter years of the millennium's first decade. The thread of this show started from songs distinctly remembered from wallowing in their magnitude from the outset and climaxed in the triumph of the latest Diana Jones album, probably her most celebrated and profound to date.
What makes Diana Jones a captivating and engaging artist is a melding of her twin backgrounds of roots in the Smokey Mountains and an upbringing in the populated confines of the urban north east. The framework is definitely of a folk singer-songwriter akin to the coffee houses of Boston and New York, while the vocals take this starting place before soaking in some serious mountain essence to create a unique point of output. Essentially a slice of southern reality cohabiting with the ethereal state of a northern dreamer.
Her first set at Birmingham's Kitchen Garden, a venue still defying the seasonal onset with yet another creative staging, saw the ears finely tuned in the opening salvo before the whole experience slipped into a divine state of bliss. The guitar playing drizzled a fine dressing onto the songs and the chat grew more informative, increasingly relaxed and wholly compatible with how a career can evolve and prosper. The pinnacle of that career at this moment in time is the influential album SONG TO A REFUGEE. A piece of art hailed for its sensitivity and power to shine a light on those in need of their story being told.
With the help of musical nods to Richard Thompson, Steve Earle and Peggy Seeger; political nods to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Elizabeth Warren, and a neighbourly acquaintance with Emma Thompson, we were led into a string of songs stretching from the infamous US-Mexico border to the ruins of Aleppo. Each had a human story and hidden condemnation of those enabling such affliction.
Supremely crafted songs such as 'We Believe You', 'Mama Hold Your Baby', 'Ask a Woman', 'Santiago' and title track 'Song to a Refugee' proudly showcased an album that proved one of the hits of lockdown and still has plenty of fuel in the tank now more widely available. Sadly the issue sees no sign of relenting, meaning the intervention of art remains relevant and critical.
Away from the new album, older material winded back all the way to 'Pony'. A song from 2006 that raised the flag of Diana Jones, a singer-songwriter of socially conscious virtues. In between we were served the optimism of 'Better Times Will Come', the issue charged 'If I Had a Gun', the emotional 'Henry Russell's Last Words' and spine tinglingly unaccompanied 'Cold Grey Ground'. Throw in the excellently cultivated 'Poverty' and 'Cracked and Broken' alongside a new song song signalling a way forward and a perfectly formed set duly entertained an appreciative Birmingham audience revelling in the return of the touring musician.
Diana Jones is one of those unique artists that richly flavours an Americana songwriting scene residing in the cracks of conforming credence. Her presence may flicker in and out, but when she is right on the mark the upper echelons of a sub genre shimmer with the duality of an artist soaking multiple influences. One suspects that many more fruitful years lie ahead and the cliche 'where has the time gone' will return. At least the Joni Mitchell cliche is put to bed and we will cherish what we have.