PRESS AUGUST 2024
Album review “Getting There” 

"Getting There is the fourth album from Stevie Jones and the Wildfires. It’s due to be launched on August 16^th at The Musician in Leicester.  Sometimes albums slap you round the face when you first play them, others creep up on you and you suddenly hear something rather splendid that had passed you on first listen. For me, Getting There was one of the latter – but it’s now a rather glorious thirty minutes / eight tracks album which I keep playing (far longer than I need to play it to write a review).

There are two covers on the album, the remainder are penned by Jones. The album opens with ‘So Far East’ – nice interplay between Jones’ acoustic and Mark Gill’s electric guitar to create a suitably thoughtful ambience on a track about driving to the edge of the land and wondering about a relationship “Will you come in with the breeze / Ride on a wild wild storm / Caress or crash on the rocks / Drift out forever lost … It feels so right /When you’re with me”. It’s the opening track and the picture on the gatefold sleeve has a lighthouse and beach on the right-hand side and sea and boat on the left-hand side – an auditory and a visual scene setting for the album.

’14 Days That Followed A Supermoon’ bounces along with jangly guitar. ‘Trumpets’ is the Mike Scott cover, quieter than the Waterboys’ original but with a lyric mixing love song and natural world that neatly ties into the two tracks it follows.

… and then we get to ‘Threshold’. This is one of the gems on the album, spoken word above a growing instrumental behind it. I know of nothing like this other than the albums of Duir. This is good.

Suitably shocked out of the earlier love songs by ‘Threshold’, the next track is ‘Skeleton Trees’ – harsher tune, wailing lead guitar, a lyric that moves to “Poisonous Berries/Skeleton Trees … Cracks in the pavement / Blood oozing through”. The track is more rock than folk. The imagery is changed from the love songs earlier – Nature on this track has become nettles, ferns and weeds; the people referenced in the song are hookers, dealers, beggars and muggers.

‘Beautiful Deletion’ follows – gentler again in the music but a lyric that links deletion with the point you move someone out of your life.  “And the woman who lay by my side / Now a ghost faded into the dawn …  And I don’t mind if she thinks of me now or not / Beautiful deletion”. We might all have been there, but very few of us have turned the end of a relationship into a computerised deletion. Rather neat. It’s followed by the second cover of the album, ‘Waiting’ the City and Colour song, bleak lyrics again.

And then … The album finishes with ‘Genuine’. This time, the lyrics are of hope “I feel gratitude for the simple words you say / No agenda just honesty / And strength to see a new day … Genuine”. The album doesn’t feel designed as conceptual (the tracks stand nicely on their own), but I’ve quoted the various lyrics above to indicate there’s a story-of-mood to be followed as you listen to Getting There. ‘Genuine’ is a belter of a track to finish on, both in construction and playing: hope in the lyrics, a rising orchestral tone in the arrangement. It would also be a great finisher to a live set.

The website has a series of weekend live shows into the autumn, mostly in the Midlands, one in Bournemouth. Sadly, I’m tied up this weekend, but the Lincoln gig has gone in my diary as one not to miss" 

Mike Wistow. folking.com Original article here

ONLINE PRESS JULY 2024

Leicestershire media coverage  for the ‘Getting There’ album launch:

Soar Valley Life Magazine 
Leicester Mercury 
Web Visit Leicester 

RADIO JULY 2024 

Many thanks to James Soars media for sorting out the radio play for tracks off ‘Getting There’ at these stations:

Forth Valley Radio in Scotland, Folk Festival show
Hayes FM in West London, the Variety Hour show
Brum Radio in Birmingham, Alt Roots show
Moorlands Radio in Cheshire, Anything Goes show
Radio Caroline, the Barry James show
10 Radio in Somerset, Folk Roots and Branches show
Argyll FM in Scotland, Folk At Five show
Tempo FM in Yorkshire, NEW4U show
Marlow FM, the Eclectic Light show, Album Of The Week 
West Norfolk Radio, Jane Clayton show
The Folkal Point show in Scotland which goes out to Radio Wester Ross, Dunoon Community Radio, MKB Independent Radio, Radio West Fife, Stirling Community Radio, Crystal FM 107.4, from Penicuik, serving south-west Midlothian,, Quality Radio Renfrewshire /Central Scotland

RADIO JUNE 2024 

Many thanks to Dave Mac Thomas for playing ‘Come In From The Rain’ on his 02/06/24 show on Heartland FM Scotland 
Listen again HERE 

RADIO JUNE 2024 

Many thanks Rachel Colton at  Hidden Harmonies Radio Future Hits Radio
for playing our positive anthem ‘Come In From The Rain’

RADIO MAY 2024 

Thanks Sharon Louise and Beat Route Radio Northants for having me on here show 24/05/24. Was alot of fun. Plenty of banter chatted about the new album, gigs, the local music scene and life in general. Tune in from 4.40. Listen again HERE . Here’s the setlist:
Come In From The Rain (live) 
Clarity In Dusk (live) 
14 Days That Followed A Supermoon (audio)
Trumpets (Waterboys cover) live 
Waiting (City and Colour cover) live 
Skeleton Trees (audio)
Genuine (audio)

RADIO MAY 2024 

Many thanks to Doc Mason at PCRFM Peterborough for playing ‘14 Days That Followed A Supermoon’ on the 23/05/24 show 

RADIO MAY 2024

We had ‘Come In From The Rain’  played by Jake Dollery on Radio Wigwam  08/05/24
 

RADIO APRIL 2024

Many thanks to Dave Mac Thomas for playing ‘This Is My Church’ on his 28/04/24 show on Heartland FM Scotland 
Listen again HERE