Nick Jonah Davis
Nick Jonah Davis is a guitarist based in rural Derbyshire. He can be found performing on the UK folk underground around the United Kingdom and was invited to the New York Guitar Festival. His music has been played by well-respected DJs including Tom Ravenscroft, Stuart Maconie, Tom Robinson and Max Reinhart. Nick also collaborates with a range of other musicians including Sharron Kraus, C Joynes and the band Goddesses. fRoots Magazine said: ‘Nick Jonah Davis is one of the select band of living solo acoustic guitar players whose music is not only virtuosic, but genuinely exciting’.
Henry Martin
A piece by Bert Jansch, played by Nick Jonah Davis for Bert Jansch
“I have chosen to play a version of Henry Martin from the Jack Orion album. This album is a touchstone for any serious guitarist, and this piece in particular shows Bert in full flight with his foil John Renbourn. It’s heady, relentless, hypnotic, timeless, magical, hinging as it does on a bold re-imagining of a traditional theme. To my ear it foreshadows so much of what has followed in guitar playing. Although my own contribution to music is a tiny, tiny fraction of what he achieved, I owe so many of the best things that happen in my life to those first sparks from Bert.”
“Bert inspires me every time I pick up a guitar. I began, as so many have, to try and get my fingers to follow his mercurial lead, a struggle that continues to this day. I remain awestruck and baffled by what he was able to do. Seeing him play live was a further revelation – in my mind he was almost unreal, and yet there he was in front of me, humbly working his magic. It’s paradoxical that a musician so rooted in tradition would so thoroughly reinvent the approach to an instrument.”
