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Stephen Jones | |
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| Born | 16 September 1962 Telford, Shropshire, England |
| Genres | Rock |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, novelist |
| Instrument(s) | Vocals |
| Years active | 1995–present |
| Website | Babybird official site |
Stephen Jones (born 16 September 1962) is an English musician and novelist.
After studying at Nottingham Trent University, Jones became involved with an experimental theatre company, Dogs in Honey, in Nottingham in the late 1980s, writing songs for productions. [1]
By 1994, Jones had written over 400 songs and gained a publishing contract with Chrysalis Music. However, he was unable to gain a recording contract, and formed a plan to self-finance the release of a series of albums featuring his home demos, limited to 1,000 copies of each, under the name Baby Bird. [2]
The first of these was I Was Born a Man , released in August 1995.
During the second half of 1995, Jones toured under the name Babybird with Huw Chadbourne (keyboards), Robert Gregory (drums), John Pedder (bass) and Luke Scott (guitar). [3] Two further collections of demos were released, Bad Shave and Fatherhood (a fourth album, The Happiest Man Alive was released in early 1996).
Babybird were signed to Echo Records (a division of the Chrysalis Group), and the first "proper" single, a full-band recording of "Goodnight", which had appeared in demo form on Fatherhood, was eventually released in the summer of 1996.
The second single, "You're Gorgeous", reached number 3 in the UK singles chart in October 1996, and was also one of the biggest selling singles of the year, going on to chart around the world. Jones has declared it's a feminist song. [4]
The album Ugly Beautiful produced two more hit singles, "Candy Girl" and "Cornershop". Shortly after Ugly Beautiful, a fifth album of demos was released – Dying Happy .
Babybird returned in 1998 with There's Something Going On, preceded by a single, "Bad Old Man". The album was a modest success and was followed by further minor hits, "If You'll Be Mine" and "Back Together".
The 2000 album Bugged was well-received critically. However, sales were poor and the two singles from it, "The F-Word" (later the theme tune to a UK TV cookery show of the same name) and "Out of Sight" barely dented the charts. Babybird were dropped by their record label soon after. A third single from the album "Fireflies/Getaway" was released on Animal Noise records, but sold few copies. The band subsequently split.
In the following years, Jones returned to where he had started – releasing albums of demos under his own name. This time round, he produced two albums of instrumental music designed to help him develop a career in film music. Stephen Jones 1985–2001 was released in 2001, and Plastic Tablets came out in 2003. Jones created the soundtrack for the film Blessed in 2004.
Between the two instrumental albums, Jones collaborated with the Manchester-based dance artist Aim on a single, "Good Disease", and worked on an album of demo songs. This became the hip-hop influenced Almost Cured of Sadness , on Sanctuary Records. Again, Jones was to score a critical success, but legal problems over samples delayed its release. It and the single "Friend" received little promotion and sold few copies.
In October 2005, a posting on the official Babybird website announced that the band had reformed. The subsequent album was called Between My Ears There Is Nothing But Music . Subsequently, the band were dropped by the Echo label.
Two more albums followed on Unison records: 2010's "Ex-Maniac", and 2011's "The Pleasures of Self Destruction".
In 2008, Jones worked on a solo project entitled 'Death of the Neighbourhood'. The eponymous debut album, a 32 track 2-disc CD set was released on 10 November 2008 on ATIC Records. The album features "Cokeholes", which was released as a three track single on 27 October 2008. [5]
In 2012, Jones announced the beginning of a new musical identity, Black Reindeer. The first Black Reindeer album, "Music for the Film That Never Got Made", was released on Bandcamp. Seven more albums of instrumental music followed through 2013. [6]
In 2013, Jones released a new song with vocals entitled "The Great Sadness". [6]
Jones has produced two works of fiction, The Bad Book in 2000 and Harry and Ida Swop Teeth (also the title of a Babybird b-side) in 2003. He also collaborated with DED Associates, who have designed many of his CD covers, on a 2000 art book Travel Sickness.
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Babybird are an English rock band formed by songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Stephen Jones, who has been releasing music since 1995. While Jones' early solo work was released under the "Baby Bird" name, the altered "Babybird" was first used to distinguish the full band line-up that has changed often over the years. However, in recent years, Jones has recorded many of the Babybird albums himself, in addition to recording as a solo artist, and under various aliases including Death of the Neighbourhood, Trucker, Black Reindeer, Deluder, Arthritis Kid and others.
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Fatherhood was the third of five albums of home-made recordings, released by Stephen Jones under the name Baby Bird in 1995. The album includes a version of the song "Goodnight", which was subsequently released as the first single by Jones' band Babybird.
"You're Gorgeous" is a song by British musical project Babybird, released as a commercial single by Echo on 30 September 1996. Babybird member Stephen Jones wrote the song and co-produced it with Steve Power. It was their only top-10 hit on the UK Singles Chart, peaking at number three, and reached the top 40 in Australia, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand and Sweden. It is the track for which the band is best known.
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The following is a list of music releases on The Echo Label. From late 2008, the label ceased trading as a record company and became only a legal entity to maintain copyrights on existing releases, which means the following list can be seen as complete.
Ugly Beautiful is a 1996 album by Babybird, the band's sixth, though their first for Echo Records. Released on 21 October, the album includes the singles "Goodnight", "Candy Girl", "You're Gorgeous" and "Cornershop". "You're Gorgeous" was a surprise top-three UK and international hit for the group. The album was written entirely by band-leader Stephen Jones. Many of the songs were written and recorded by Jones alone between 1988 and 1994. Several of the songs had been released in these demo incarnations on Jones' solo lo-fi work as Baby Bird that he did prior to forming the band with John Pedder, Robert Gregory, Luke Scott and Huw Chadbourn. The majority of the album was produced by Jones with Steve Power. Darren Allison and Ian Caple each produced a song.
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Goodnight is a 1996 single by Babybird, released from the album Ugly Beautiful. The song originally appeared on Stephen Jones' solo album Fatherhood, which had been released the previous December, but was later re-recorded with a full band after Babybird were signed to Echo Records. The single was a minor hit on the UK Singles Chart, peaking at #28.
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