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A modern-day Renaissance Man, Jeb Loy Nichols is a musician, songwriter and visual artist whose creative path has taken him from his birthplace in the Midwestern USA, to London and on to rural Wales.

Born in Wyoming and raised in Missouri, Nichols absorbed the sounds of both rural America and the records played around his house and the radio. He says, “The main station I listened to was out of Kansas City and played country music all day, then at nine o-clock at night they'd switch and become a soul station. It was magic, all this great music; Bobby Womack, Al Green, Curtis Mayfield, The Staples Singers, all of it right there, in my bedroom, for free.”

When Jeb was fourteen the family moved to Austin, Texas and the thriving live music scene. He saw everything from Funkadelic to Bob Marley to George Jones to The Ramones and was knocked out by The Sex Pistols. That was all new, the sound, the fury, the politics, all of it and it led straight to the road again, this time to New York. “I was seventeen”, recalls Jeb, “and New York was like nothing I'd ever seen. I'd always felt like an outsider and then there I was, in a town of outsiders. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.”

In New York he was awarded a full scholarship to study painting at Parsons School of Design. He also started hanging out at clubs like Tier 3, The Loft and the Mudd Club where he became friends with members of the Slits and Neneh Cherry. It was the emerging hip hop scene that was most fascinating for him. “It was 1979 - and nothing in the world was more exciting than rap. The Treacherous Three, Funky Four Plus One, Grandmaster Flash - that stuff was so great! And then you had DJs like Larry Levan, it was fantastic.”

After three years in New York, Jeb hit the road again, this time to London. He shared a house with Ari Up from the Slits, Neneh Cherry and producer Adrian Sherwood, and, as he had in NYC, dove into London's artistic community. “I formed a country band with Joe Brack and we played every kind of show you can think of. We did some bluegrass, some country, a lot of old protest songs.”

In 1990 a tape of songs ended up at OKra Records, a small label in Columbus, Ohio. OKra offered Jeb a deal, and Jeb put together a band that included his wife Loraine Morley, On-U Sound man Martin Harrison, and jazz trombonist John Harbourne.

The Fellow Travellers merged country-tinged, acoustic-based songs with a dub bottom. “It was fun”, says Jeb “it just worked. We all played what we wanted and stayed out of each others way, and it sounded great. I've never had more fun.” The Fellow Travellers released three more albums and were described in Spin as “the lonesome children of Merle, Marley and Marx”.

After the Fellow Travellers split, Jeb released three solo albums, and in 2000, Jeb Loy and Loraine Morley moved to Wales where they're slowly reclaiming ten acres of neglected scrub land, renovating a barn and putting in a large garden. “I'm sure I'll move again”, he says, “but not just yet. This feels good, feels like something close to home.” Since his move to Wales, Jeb has recorded three more albums: Easy Now (2002), Now Then (2005) and 2007’s Days Are Mighty.

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2007 also saw Jeb contribute his mellow vocal to the Groove Armada album ‘Soundboy Rock’, while his latest album, with arrangements by jazz bassist Riaan Vosloo is due to be released in the summer of 2008.

Jeb’s visual arts career has been as productive and varied as his musical life. In 1989 he had his first show at Young Unknowns Gallery in London and eventually converted a Victorian stable yard in South London into a thriving arts co-op, Clements Yard. He had further exhibitions in New York, Germany, France and Japan and in 1997 became Art Director for Pressure Sounds. For the next seven years he helped run and design the releases on the London-based reggae label. On his move to Wales he set up a print-making studio in his new house.

2004 saw Jeb commissioned by Paul Smith to design artwork for a range of t-shirts and fabric, and in conjunction with Paul, had a large exhibition of the woodcuts in Japan. From December 2007 to February 2008, Jeb had an exhibition of new prints at the AMUTI Gallery in London. The show, entitled Peopled And Unpeopled Places, was coupled with the publication of his book I Need You To Tell Me Something Different. The show, according to ArtSpaced, was "a complete success - a marriage of the rural and the urban, the machine in the garden. His prints are both masterfully executed and stunningly beautiful. Perfection."

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