BILL Jones won the Best Newcomer award at the 2001 BBC Folk Awards in her debut professional year, and the daisy-fresh qualities that marked her out her Turn To Me debut are in full bloom on her third studio album, again released on her own label.
The self-produced Two Year Winter finds the Sunderland-based singer, lyricist and ballad revivalist freshening up the traditional songbook and cherry-picking from the contemporary folk repertoire with equal aplomb. Her porcelain-delicate voice has matured to suit both light and shade (the fun and games of The Haymakers and Diddling Set on the one hand; the winter chill of Anne Hills's Two Year Winter, Eamon Friel's moonlit From My Window and Pete Morton's sombre piano ballad The Two Brothers on the other). Her trio work with Miranda Sykes and former University of York flautist Sarah Wright has led to a further broadening of her arrangements; Sykes's harmony vocals are an added pleasure, particularly on Hey Away; and Jones's jazz past informs the flugelhorn-adorned The Lover's Ghost. She is still to match the impact of the Mercury Music Prize-nominated Eliza Carthy or Kate Rusby but Two Year Winter truly fits the Bill.
Updated: 12:13 Thursday, July 24, 2003
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