Howard Jones

Howard Jones (b. 1955) is a British singer and songwriter best known for his early hits in the eighties, namely New Song, What Is Love and No-One Is To Blame. he scored ten Top 40 hits in the UK between 1983 and 1986 and nine hits in the US Hot 100 between 1984 and 1992. His debut album Human's Lib also went to no. 1 in the UK. He performed at the Live Aid concert in Wembley in 1985 although was not part of the original Band Aid. He has been quoted as saying "I wasn't fashionable. I never got good reviews. But I'm proud of the fact that I wasn't liked by the media... Pop music is so reactionary and bigoted. And I found that what's 'cool' is often very shallow and transient". Jones continues to perform live and record.

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Links to Peel
Howard Jones never seems to have featured on Peel playlists and the DJ does in fact seem to have a derogatory opinion of Jones and his music. On the 06 March 1985 show he said: "On I think it was Monday night's programme I played a track from the LP Walking In The Shadow Of The Big Man by Guadalcanal Diary, and a Radio 1 person came down the following day to congratulate me on doing so and to find out more about it, being quite excited by it. She is at this very moment of course being re-educated in a sub-basement somewhere, having Howard Jones' LPs played to her at deafening volume till her brain cells transmute.'" Jones made his radio debut with a session for 'rhythm pal' David Jensen in early 1983 an went on tour as support act to former session artists China Crisis, OMD and Strawberry Switchblade. Peel was Top of the Pops presenter on three occasions when Jones also appeared.

Shows played

 * 31 December 1985: Hide and Seek (New Year's Eve Party/Live Aid concert)
 * 06 October 1983 (TOTP): New Song
 * 22 December 1983 (TOTP): What Is Love?
 * 07 June 1984 (TOTP): Pearl in the Shell