Howard Jones (musician)

Howard Jones (February 23, 1955 - ) is a British singer and songwriter.

Originally from High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, he now lives with his family in Maidenhead, England.

He was born John Howard Jones on February 23 1955. His birthplace was Southampton, England and he is the eldest of three boys.

When he was young he used to give piano lessons. One of his clients was a girl named Jan Smith who he later married. Whilst working with her, a vehicle crashed into their van injuring Jan. She claimed compensation and used the money to buy Howard a synthesiser. The shop delivered two by mistake and Howard liked the combination of the two so much, that he paid for the extra one. The shop knows him as "Honest Howard"!

He hit the charts in 1983 with a song called "New Song" which made it into the UK top ten, although there were persistent allegations that he had plagiarised the music of Peter Gabriel's 1977 hit "Solsbury Hill". He subsequently had three more hits over the next twelve months and a UK Number 1 album, "Human's Lib". He acquired a hardcore fanbase made up of both starstruck teenagers and more mature music lovers, who saw the musicianship which went into the electronic sounds of his songs. His mother ran his fan club. Jones was a close temporal and stylistic contemporary of Nik Kershaw, and the two musicians were often conflated in the affections of the contemporary pop audience.

Howard was known as a respectable face of pop, combining innovative synthesiser music with strong feelings on animal rights and life's excesses. This led to some people dubbing him 'boring'.

In his early days, he performed with a mime artist called Jed Hoile, who used to do improvised choreography while doused in white paint as Howard played behind him.

In the summer of 1984, he released a single called "Like To Get To Know You Well", which he said was 'dedicated to the original spirit of the Olympic Games'. Although it wasn't an official Olympic anthem for the Games in Los Angeles that summer, it caught on and was a huge worldwide hit. The sleeve featured the song title in ten different languages; while Howard sang the title line in French and German on the extended version.

Howard's second album was a ground breaking 'remix' album, the likes of which had not been seen before very often. It contained six songs, all of which had been previously released, but in new, elongated formats, including the multi-lingual version of "Like To Get To Know You Well". The album was called "The 12 Inch Album" and the sleeve featured a miniature Howard standing next to a 12-inch ruler.

When he released his second studio album, "Dream Into Action", in 1985, he introduced his own backing band, including future Soul II Soul singer Caron Wheeler as one third of female backing vocal trio Afro Diziak. Playing bass guitar, meanwhile, was Howard's own brother Martin. One of the singles released from this album, "No-One Is To Blame", featured Phil Collins as drummer and producer.

In July 1985, Howard performed at Wembley Stadium as part of the Live Aid concert, singing his 1984 hit "Hide And Seek" while playing a piano belonging to Freddie Mercury.

Howard had his last UK Top 40 hit in 1986 and thereafter concentrated on production, songwriting and running a successful vegetarian restaurant, though he had Billboard Top 10 success in the States in the 1990s. His eldest son, Osheen, was born in 1985 and is now an actor.

In 2005, he competed on the American TV show Hit Me Baby One More Time, losing to Irene Cara.

Discography

• Human's Lib
• The 12" Album (Mostly remixes from the Human's Lib album)
• Dream Into Action
• Action Replay (Remixes from Dream Into Action)
• One To One
• Cross That Line
• In The Running
• Working In The Backroom (Only available on tour or through his website)
• Live Acoustic America
• Angels & Lovers (Only released in Japan)
• People (A jewelcase version and a tri-fold slip case version featured the faces of 210 people who are friends, family and fans of Howard.)

External Links

• Official Website (http://www.howardjones.com)de:John Howard Jones