Jon Boden

Jon Boden has become the stand-out performer of his generation of traditional folk artists, but one whose repertoire extends far beyond the boundaries of the genre.

Most recognisably, he was the lead singer (and one of the principal arrangers) of the multi-award-winning Bellowhead, one of the most exciting live acts of recent years. Over 12 years, Bellowhead achieved a level of critical and commercial success unmatched by any other band working in English traditional music in the last three decades. In 2015 Jon announced that he had decided to leave the band, and on May 1st 2016 Bellowhead played their final farewell gig. During lockdown, Bellowhead reunited for a livestream performance released as the album Reassembled. This, in turn, led to a reunion tour in Nov 2022.

Since 2009, he has also performed with his own band, The Remnant Kings, performing both traditional folk music and Jon’s work featured on his second solo album Songs from the Floodplain – a bleak but hopeful view of a post-apocalyptic world, a subject revisited on Afterglow (2017), his first new album after leaving Bellowhead. The Remnant Kings re-formed in July 2017 in an expanded 10-piece line-up to debut Afterglow at the Cambridge Folk Festival. In 2019 Jon recorded and released the album Rose In June with that same line-up, featuring a mix of traditional and newly written songs and tunes. 2021 saw the release of the third and final album in the Floodplain Trilogy titled Last Mile Home. The album was launched with a live Remnant Kings tour in Feb 2022.

In addition, within the traditional folk scene, he has played in a duo with fellow Bellowhead member John Spiers for over a decade. In 2021, they resumed touring and launched a new album of traditional English songs and tunes titled Fallow Ground.

Throughout Jon’s folk music, there is a commitment to social singing, and he’s actively promoted this via his Sheffield folk club, Royal Traditions. The development of the Colourchord harmony singing system is what Jon actively promotes, through workshops and school projects as a means for untrained singers to access simple harmony singing in a social context. In addition, from 24th June (Midsummer's Day) 2010 for one year, he undertook the ambitious ‘A Folk Song A Day’ project in which he released a song every day. The tracks later compiled into monthly albums and made available on afolksongaday.com