Joe Solo

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Ain't Gonna Be A Pawn No More

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Released: Jan 1, 2011

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Ain't Gonna Be A Pawn No More
2:52
305 plays
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Menthol Cigarettes
4:54
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It Takes A Worried Man
2:39
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White Feather
2:48
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November The 12th
4:19
526 plays

Total Plays: 15,780 / Plays Today: 2See All Featured ►

Latest Blog Entries

Sep 23, 2011 1:57 PM BRAND NEW ALBUM AVAILABLE TO DOWNLOAD
Feb 9, 2011 2:32 PM CD LAUNCH PARTY PART II- STATION HOTEL, LOFTUS. FRIDAY 11TH FEBRUARY 2011
Jan 7, 2011 2:49 PM Well, that was one hell of a week!
Jan 2, 2011 1:45 PM NEW ALBUM AND BOOK AVAILABLE FROM TODAY!!!!!!
Nov 26, 2010 2:50 PM 'STORIES FROM POTTER'S FIELD'

General Info

Genre: Acoustic / Blues / Folk
Location Scarborough, Please select your region., Un
Profile Views: 49467
Last Login: 4/1/2012
Member Since 11/4/2005
Website www.joesolo.co.uk
Record Label Resolve
Type of Label Indie
Bio
Hello and welcome to my little corner of myspace. If all is going according to plan there should be some tunes streaming through. Enjoy. Please take these songs and pass them on. Don't believe the industry: file sharing is spreading music, not killing it. My latest album "Forwards Is Just Backwards In Reverse" was released in February 2010 and there are a number of tracks on the player. I guess it's a State Of The Nation address. At the time of my putting pen to paper the UK had an ailing Labour government, was in the grips of a recession that threatened unemployment and poverty for millions, had felt a dangerous rise in far right politics and had a Conservative party waiting in the wings to be swept into power on a tide of public apathy. In short, it was exactly the same country my then ten year old eyes looked out on just over 30 years ago. It got me thinking about how ordinary people have to bear the brunt of criminally stupid decisions made in their name, suffer the consequences, and ultimately survive in spite of it all. Over and over again. From the Industrial Revolution, through the Great Depression, two World Wars; through the decline of Empire, the merciless onslaught of Thatcherism to now and this. So I've written about everything I see today. The poverty, the erosion of industry, the narcissism, the BNP, the war, family and faith and hope. And perhaps above all the refusal to curl up and die. We shall overcome. Again. It's what we do. The music hopefully carries echoes from another time too. As much Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger and Lee Hays as it is Joe Strummer and Billy Bragg. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. My previous album "Music From Potter's Field" (2009) kept me very busy last year and received some great reviews for which I was most thankful having poured my heart and soul into it and researched it in minute detail. Here are a couple of YouTube promos put together by the wonderful Tim Roux. The first featuring the album opener "November The 12th", the second it's closer "Peace". Many of the slides are French archive photographs which have been converted to colour. They are stunning; and a reality check for those of us who are used to seeing the First World War in sepia. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. Both albums are available via the usual i-this and u-that and all those virtual thingies, or you could always just tap me on the shoulder at gigs, in truth I kinda prefer it that way. I'm currently writing songs for a further album "If Peel Street Could Talk" which will be released in 2011. Keep in touch. Best wishes. Joe x.
Members
Hello There, Before I start selling myself and my wares, please take the time to click on the logo below and help support FolkAgainstFacism a group set up to help combat those ******* at the BNP who are out to create the impression that Folk music is THEIR music. It ain't, it never was, and it never will be. Lets keep this slime down in the gutter where they belong. Right. .. .... My new album "Forwards Is Just Backwards In Reverse" is available via CDBaby by clicking the link below.... .......... My previous album, "Music From Potter's Field" is available if you click THIS one............... ..... where it will be despatched to you in return for the princely sum of $15. Or if you're playing catch-up, and want a copy of 2008's "Me & Billy The Kid"...... .......... it's only $7.50. Bargain! You won't get a better deal than that! I've now also got a Facebook site if you want to pop over there and be my friend. This will gain you little else other than some pointless idle banter, but maybe you're into that kinda thing. I've also got a "Musician" page over there, and if you want to click on that and be my "fan" that would be lovely. You'll get updates on gigs/albums and the like, and I'd be mighty glad to see you. ...... .... .. .. .. .. .. ...... A brief rundown on the story so far. I played my first gig in 1987. Spent the next three years busking; hitching around the place and sleeping on floors; writing songs and learning to play. It was the closest thing a smalltown boy could get to hopping trains like the old Bluesmen and, being a head-in-the-clouds dreamer, hooked on the myths of rock'n'roll, I loved it. My fingers and thumb eventually got me halfway round Europe singing songs by The Pogues, The Men They Couldn't Hang, Elvis Costello, Billy Bragg, The Clash, Stiff Little Fingers, Christy Moore, Steve Earle and, of course, Bob Dylan. In 1991 I settled in Hull and formed a band called Lithium Joe. I spent the next ten years jumping up and down banging out pop-punk to the four corners of the UK using my own label, Resolve Records, to release a bunch of 7" singles and a coupla cd albums. We toured incessantly, released 52 songs, caught no breaks whatsoever and eventually just wore ourselves out. When the band split in 2001 I was gutted, but I just wasn't ready to quit. I just stripped it all back down and started again. I holed up in my shed with a 4-track recorder and a single Shure mic. The first Joe Solo album "An Exile In Suburbia" was released in 2004, and my aim is to release one a year til I drop down dead. I have no money, never have had, so I can't afford studios or even decent equipment, but in Lithium Joe we always sought to do the best we could with whatever tools were at our disposal, and I still stand by that. If you love music enough, you find a way. Thanks for tuning in. Stick around, I'll be here for a good while yet. ..............
Influences
Here's a Top Ten of all time..completely definitive...until tomorrow. 1. London Calling- The Clash 2. Grievous Angel- Gram Parsons 3. Bringing It All Back Home- Bob Dylan 4. Time (The Revelator)- Gillian Welch 5. Cassadaga - Bright Eyes 6. The Heart Of Saturday Night- Tom Waits 7. If I Should Fall From Grace With God - The Pogues 8. Old No. 1 - Guy Clark 9. Blue - Joni Mitchell 10. El Corazon - Steve Earle ...but there must be a thousand albums I've laughed, or cried, or punched the air to over the years. I'm as likely to listen to Chris Wood as I am The Shirelles, Green Day, The Stanley Brothers or Bob Marley & The Wailers. Anything played with heart and soul and love the way great music should be. And I am constantly inspired by the good, good people who continue against all the odds to promote independent music, and who have done so much to keep people like myself alive. I salute you, and you have my love and best wishes always. .... .. .. .. .. .. ................
Sounds Like
Everything I've ever soaked up and twisted round and spat back out again in my own inimitible style. I once overheard someone saying they didn't like my music as "you can't do your ironing to it". Thank Christ for that! I'd have been worried if you could. I hate background music. Either it demands your full attention or it isn't worth playing. Most modern music revels in it's own mediocrity. I'd rather you thought mine was crap and bin it than iron to it! Whatever is the world coming to? I'm constantly writing, always trying to do something I haven't done before...why not? I've got nobody breathing down my neck demanding hits. I'm FRRRREEEEEEE!!!! Currently writing songs for an album to be released 2011/12 entitled "If Peel Street Could Talk" and I haven't the faintest idea what it is going to sound like. That is why it is so much fun!! SEEEEEEEEYYYYAAAAAAAAAAA!!! .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..