Joe Broughton was born in 1976. Although he is a classically trained violin player his style owes much more to Folk, Jazz and Blues. As well as the violin Joe plays the Guitar, Bass, Mandolin and Piano. He has been performing since 1986 with his brother Ben, "the razor-witted Pete Townshend of the acoustic guitar". On the release of their first album, Folk On Tap described the duo as "Spine-Tingling". They later released a live album called me and my brother and spent a few years touring Europe with Keith Hancock, Jo Hamilton and Nancy Burgess as Famous Last Words. In time for gigs in England, Scotland and Hong Kong later this year Ben and Joe's long awaited third album - The Mortgage Years will be released.
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Joe studied at the Birmingham Conservatoire where in 1997 he won the prestigious Conservatoire Composition Prize. He now teaches Folk Music and composition there. The Conservatoire Folk Ensemble has now become a gigging entity in it's own right. The Birmingham Conservatoire made Joe an honorary member in 2003, which carries the designation HonBC.
Between 1987 and 1992 Joe worked in circuses - unicycling, juggling and creating shows for street theatre and big tops around the UK. At this time he was also a keen writer and had poems published in two books. In 1990 the BBC made a short film about Joe's diverse talents for children's television.
Joe in 1987
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1997 - 2003 Joe Played in the
legendary Albion Band. Ashley Hutchings describes him as a "massive
individual talent". Joe has gained a reputation for performing with
infectious enthusiasm and "…in-between song banter that would put most
comedians to shame." – The Ledge.
The band extensively toured Europe and recorded five albums. By the time they got to the 25,000 strong audience at Cropredy Festival they were being called the classic line up.
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In 1999 Joe released a book of
his own tunes and poems and started work on his first solo album "Sound
Engine", which was eventually released February 22nd 2002. This album
was entirely composed by Joe and is a unique mix of styles from Indian
Rock to Western choral, Latin American Jazz to a theatrical Blues.
"Almost all nine contributing musicians seem to leave their stamp on the album, though somehow, the whole sounds like the utterance of a single compositional voice. Maybe that's the true genius of personnel management in the Ellingtonian tradition that Broughton brings to his leadership role. So, elegant lead guitar solos merge effortlessly into hard bop and trip hop rhythm loops underscore languid and meditative instrumental passages...Sound Engine is thoroughly recommended for students of the impure and hybrid, lovers of jazz and folk as well as novel and imaginative composition." - Rob Smith, Taplas
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An album from Joe's new collaboration with Kevin Dempsey, "Every Other World", was released at the end of 2001.This new pairing of Dempsey and Broughton has already taken them all over Europe. They play a mixture of British and East European Folk influenced music which is complimented by other world music and jazz. "...all you bands out there who think you can “jazz-up” folk music, hear this and weep!" - Flos Headford, Shreds & Patches.
The second Dempsey/Broughton album FreeHand was released in 2004 and has been played extensively on radio including BBC Radio 2 as well as receiving rave reviews internationally. |
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