MOORBY JONES
the background
Steve Moorby and Dick Jones met up as bright-eyed, barely-bearded young musicians way back in the days of loon pants, tank-tops and the three-day-week. Gelling instantly as songwriting partners (DJ words, SM tunes), they played together in the legendary ‘70s weirdfolk band Tintagel. Publishing contracts, top underground club exposure and regular BBC broadcasts notwithstanding, the band failed to get a deal and it ran aground. And in spite of all attempts to maintain the creative partnership under the moniker Moorby Jones, life got in the way and Steve and Dick lost touch.
It was via the spaghetti junction of the internet that contact was finally re-established in the autumn of 2014. A first meeting over a guitar and a bass established within a few bars that the old songs were not only alive and well but that, nurtured over the decades by Steve, time had seasoned them. An initial gig blew the dust off a handful of them and (against all odds in the fly-by-night world of rock-and-roll) Moorby Jones fired up again. Steve’s daughter Gemma (drummer with synth-pop songwriters-to-the-stars Kish Mauve) joined on second guitar and vocals and also as third composer. Having grown up with those early songs around her, Gemma was the perfect fit and now the revived Moorby Jones has a large and growing repertoire of self-written material, with the new songs taking precedence over the originals and representing a powerful new three-way identity.
News and song updates are posted on Facebook and music videos to our songs are now available to watch on our YouTube channel - see our contact page for links.
Our first album, Past Continuous was launched towards the end of 2018.
Our second album launched in February 2020 is called "The Open Road" and our latest album "Other Plans" was released in March 2021 - all our music is now available online for download or streaming.
If you've got this far then you're an old friend already and we look forward to meeting up with you face-to-face at a gig.
