Jon Boden and the Remnant Kings
 
Nominated Folk Singer of the Year - BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2012 

On 24th June 2010 – Midsummer’s Day – acclaimed singer, Jon Boden, launched an ambitious new project – A Folk Song A Day. Every day for one year Jon is posting a traditional song online to promote the art of ‘social’ (or communal) singing. Now largely confined to football grounds and places of worship, social singing was once the domain of public houses throughout the land. Ending with 12 digital albums (one released each month), containing a total of 365 songs, Jon Boden will also be providing a unique, traditional folk song resource for those looking for inspiration; social singing made possible by contemporary technology.

Aside from the two solo albums mentioned below Jon has released several highly acclaimed albums with fast-rising big band Bellowhead (the latest of which is due to be released later this year) as well as Vagabond with the equally feted traditional duo, Spiers & Boden (2008). He has also recorded and performed with Eliza Carthy on one of her Mercury Prize nominated albums.

Jon Boden was born in Chicago in 1977, grew up in Winchester, graduated in Mediaeval Studies from Durham University and since becoming a parent, has settled in the South Yorkshire dales.

Jon has toured internationally with Bellowhead, performed on Later with Jools Holland (alongside new fans, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers) and also made two televised appearances at the BBC 2008 Proms. Bellowhead were recently appointed Band in Residence at London’s South Bank Centre, following in the footsteps of St Etienne.
Additionally, Jon has composed several theatre scores, most recently for ‘The Merchant of Venice’ at the RSC’s Statford-upon-Avon Theatre as well as for ‘Hamlet’ at The Globe (2008).

In the wake if the fantastically successful 'A Folk Song A Day' project (which reached number one in the iTunes music podcast charts in its first week) Bellowhead’s lead singer brings his motley crew of post-apocalyptic folk survivalists to showcase just a few of the 365 folk songs from the on-going project. Lively new arrangements of traditional material will weave in and out of Boden's 'Songs From The Floodplain' - his critically acclaimed album set in a dystopian future.

The band line-up includes fellow Bellowhead multi-instrumentalists Sam Sweeney and Paul Sartin plus concertina virtuoso Rob Harbron and double bass maestro Rick Foot. Also making a return appearance will be Eric and Edith, the two wax cylinder players that joined the band to great acclaim in their 2010 tour. Songs old, new and from the not too distant future.

Following the gig the band will lead a singing session with the audience. They will record a rendition of a folk song (advance notice of which song will be given!) and that song will be posted on the A Folk Song a Day podcast the following morning.

Boden’s voice is... “the most potent weapon of mass seduction to have hit the scene in decades” (Stirrings)