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Wizz Jones

Colin Harper, Record Collector, 2004

"HARD TIMES IN NEWQUAY, If You've Got Long Hair" was the endearingly absurd refrain performed by that Zelig of British acoustic music, Raymond "Wizz" Jones, when Alan Wicker went down to Cornwall in 1960 for BBC television to report on the area's worrying upsurge of beatnik activity. Jones is still "big in Cornwall", and a colossus in the history of British folk-blues and 'acid folk' but, incredibly, real success has somehow always eluded him.

Total word count of piece: 1504

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