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Bill Jones’s music is as surprising as her name. Only performing professionally for a couple years, Bill (short for Belinda) has already walked away with the Horizon Award as Best New Artist at BBC’s Radio 2 Folk Awards. Although she had grown up in Stratfordshire, England, around traditional folk music (her father was a fiddler), she paid little attention to it until recently.

Now, bridging the traditional English genre with a contemporary twist, Jones creates a fresh sound for her listeners that delights the ear. With lilting vocals and masterful instrumental accompaniment, Two Year Winter , her third release, is an album full of emotion, richness and refreshment.

“From My Window” opens the album with a plucked guitar and Jones’s smooth, soft voice. Like a lullaby, the song mourns the passing of childhood and make-believe. “But the clocks go round and round like ragged rascals/What was morning soon is afternoon/No more land of make believe but still I’m certain/From my window I can see the moon.”  Like much of the album, “The Holland Mistress” and “Two Year Winter” rely heavily on Jones’s light, masterful voice as the primary instrument, which is supported from underneath by the accordion, guitar, whistle and other instruments. “Two Year Winter” is a chilling song, musically and lyrically: “At the end of a two year winter/I just can’t let go of the sorrow/I look at the sky and I ache for blue/Wandering snowblind and lost to you.” “Night-time Jigs,” a sleepy instrumental medley of three traditional songs, features Jones on accordion and whistle, with the guitar, flute, and cello accompanying.

In the Irish-influenced “The Story of Our Darling Grace,” Jones’s lilting voice tells a true story of a shipwreck tragedy and the ironic legend of Grace Darling that grew out of it.

Capitalizing on the English penchant for great ghost stories, “The Lover’s Ghost” tells the tale of two lovers who shall never satisfy their love. ”Oh when you have gone away/Said the young man to his love/I’ll recall the banks where you and I did walk/But the rose, the fairest flower/That ever blossomed there, he said/It has died away and withered on the stalk/My little love he said, my handsome little love/When will you ever leave the clay?/When the fish grow wings and fly/and the seven seas run dry/And the rocks melt in the heat of the day.”

“Hey Away,” originally “Sandgate Wife’s Nurse Song” by Robert Nunn, has been arranged with modern English and a new tune, sung beautifully as a lullaby by a mother who waits yeagerly for her flawed husband to return home from the sea. Almost a capella, “Lost Chances” has just a wisp of cello and accordion accompanying Jones’s singing. Lilting and sad, it tells of regret and past dreams.

While much of Winter tells sad tales, there are bright, fun moments that keep the album from becoming gloomy. “Diddling Set” is one of those songs. Light and whimsical, it breaks the sadness of the previous two songs by mixing humor and “mouth music” (british folk’s version of “scat”). 

“The Two Brothers” returns the listener to a mellow and soothing mood, making use of a beautiful piano arrangement and Jones’s voice. A protest song “filled with compassion and class,” as she puts it. Wonderful mix of modern and traditional. “The Haymakers” answers the age-old question we’ve all been wondering: What happens nine months after haymaking? It’s a traditional song, rural, simple, with a delicate touch of humor at the end. Fun and playful, like a community square dance night.  Winter closes with “Bide,” a sentimental pastoral song about “the chase” when boy meets girl. “If you turn into a hare and run upon the hill/I’ll become a greyhound and chase you round until/ You will bide.”

Two Year Winter is a beautiful, mellow album filled with remorse, hope, longing and humor. Proving that traditional English folk songs can still touch us deeply in our hyper-tech world, Bill Jones provides an album that stands out from today’s cookie-cutter pop sounds and remixes. Her voice is beguiling and easy on the ears, which makes the bonus EP included with the disc a great perk. Like fresh snow on black maples, Two Year Winter is a delight to the spirit.

Ben Cauldwerse 8/31/2003