Executive Overview
Folk music exists as a living, breathing lineage—a continuous dialogue across generations where songs are not merely preserved in amber, but actively inhabited, reshaped, and handed down. This week, contemporary English folk artist Jon Wilks steps squarely into this rich tradition with the announcement of his upcoming single, a reverent yet distinct rendition of the traditional ballad “Geordie.” Slated for release on Friday, September 4th, the single serves as a profound homage to mark the 50th anniversary of Martin Carthy’s seminal 1976 album, Crown of Horn.
For decades, Martin Carthy’s angular, percussive guitar style and singular vocal delivery have formed the bedrock of modern English folk music. Carthy did not just influence his peers; he fundamentally rewired how traditional material was approached, blending uncompromising rhythmic drive with deep historical reverence. In releasing his version of "Geordie"—a track forever linked to Carthy’s definitive 1976 recording—Wilks is doing more than releasing a covers record. He is charting the evolution of a mentorship, celebrating a landmark anniversary in British folk history, and offering his own idiosyncratic contribution to a song that has traversed centuries.
Accompanied by a striking, windswept music video filmed by his wife, Emi, at Cheesefoot Head overlooking Winchester, Wilks’s “Geordie” bridges the gap between deep-seated admiration and artistic autonomy. Far from an exercise in mimicry, the single is the culmination of a transformative period in Wilks’s career—one accelerated by touring alongside Carthy himself in 2023. As the track prepares to hit streaming platforms via its official presave link, this release invites listeners to reconsider the enduring power of traditional songcraft and the vital mechanics of folk transmission.
Detailed Chronology
To understand the weight of Jon Wilks’s new release, one must trace both the timeline of the song itself and the recent trajectory that brought Wilks to record it.
The Deep Roots: Child Ballad 209
"Geordie" is far from a modern invention. Cataloged as Child Ballad 209 and Roud 90, the narrative has echoed through centuries of oral and printed tradition. Early on, the ballad fractured into two distinct branches. The Scottish strand, emerging later in print, tells a variant tale. However, it is the English strand—disseminated via 17th-century broadsides that traveled across England, Ireland, and North America—that forms the emotional core of the version performed by both Carthy and Wilks.
The narrative is a compact tragedy of desperation and nobility. A narrator crosses London Bridge, where they overhear a grieving woman weeping for Geordie, who is condemned to hang. She laments that he is of noble blood, loved far too well, and doomed for the relatively minor transgression of poaching the king’s deer to sell on. Desperate, she offers her children as collateral to spare his life, only to be told by the judge that her plea has arrived too late. The song typically closes with a defiant wish among the onlookers to stand on the hill, weapons in hand, ready to fight for his liberation. It is this potent cocktail of domestic grief and systemic injustice that has kept the song alive for hundreds of years.
The 1976 Milestone: Crown of Horn
Fast forward to 1976, a pivotal era in English folk revivalism. Martin Carthy released his acclaimed album Crown of Horn. While the record notably featured guest appearances by Tony Cox playing a Moog synthesizer on three tracks—a bold, avant-garde touch for the era—it was Carthy’s uncompromising musicianship that defined the record. His percussive, syncopated guitar playing and unmistakable voice anchored the project.
Among its standout tracks was "Geordie." Carthy’s arrangement was so complete, so rhythmically locked-in, and so definitive that for decades subsequent folk artists viewed it as untouchable territory. It stood as a masterclass in economy and tension, creating an intimidating threshold for anyone brave enough to follow in his footsteps.
The 2023 Catalyst and the Road to Recording
For Jon Wilks, "Geordie" had long served as a gateway track into Carthy’s expansive catalog. Yet, despite knowing the song intimately, Wilks treated Carthy’s 1976 arrangement with sacred awe, limiting his own attempts to half-remembered guitar snippets posted casually to Instagram.
The dynamic shifted irrevocably in 2023 when Wilks joined the Songs of Martin Carthy tour. Suddenly, performing the material live was no longer optional; it was a nightly requirement. Immersed in the rigorous demands of honoring Carthy’s arrangements on stage, Wilks moved past superficial imitation. The song migrated from a passive point of study into his own muscle memory. Encouraged by Carthy’s lifelong ethos—urging younger musicians to take traditional ideas and run with them—Wilks found a natural "jaunt and swing" emerging in his own playing, setting it apart from Carthy’s more metred original recording. Buoyed by enthusiastic audience reception night after night, Wilks finally took the plunge in the weeks following the tour, heading into the studio to capture his own definitive version.
Supporting Context & Metrics
The anatomy of Jon Wilks’s "Geordie" reveals a meticulous approach to production, arrangement, and historical placement.
- The Anniversary Marker: The single’s release directly coincides with the 50th anniversary milestone of Crown of Horn (1976–2026), placing contemporary folk curation in direct conversation with the golden era of the English folk revival.
- Instrumentation & Tuning: Wilks approaches the song using his signature Turnstone Select Series guitar, dialed into a DADEAB tuning. This represents a transposition of two semitones up from Martin Carthy’s famously complex and idiosyncratic tuning configurations.
- Textural Accents: Beyond acoustic guitar and vocals, the track incorporates a historic Victorian pump organ, alongside subtle aural quirks designed to challenge and engage the listener’s ear.
- Visual Aesthetic: The accompanying music video was captured by Emi Wilks at Cheesefoot Head—a natural amphitheater and striking chalk bowl overlooking Winchester, Hampshire—providing a vast, windswept visual backdrop that mirrors the song’s themes of open-air desperation and landscape.
- The Levi Smith Connection: Deepening the historical lineage, Wilks recalls Carthy recounting a variant taught to him by traditional singer Levi Smith. When Smith delivered the chilling line, "Your Geordie shall hang in chains of gold," he reportedly added with a knowing glint, "Chains of gold. Now there’s hanging for you." It is this lineage of oral storytelling that informs both Carthy’s and Wilks’s artistic choices.
Official Statements & Reflections
Reflecting on the evolution of his relationship with his mentor and the process of bringing this song to tape, Jon Wilks shares intimate insights into the journey:
"To call me a huge admirer of Carthy is something of an understatement," Wilks notes, before adding how the relationship deepened profoundly on the road: "Somewhere in the months since [the 2023 tour], he stopped being an influence I studied and became a dear friend."
Discussing the intimidating legacy of the 1976 arrangement, Wilks elaborates on his hesitation to record the track:
"I’d picked about at it for some time. The odd half-arsed attempt at the guitar part would turn up on my Instagram, and I never took it any further than that, because it was Martin’s arrangement. His version… is so complete, so definitive, that trying to record my own always felt like turning up to a house that was already lived in."
The turning point, he explains, came from necessity and direct encouragement:
"That changed when I joined the Songs of Martin Carthy tour and had to learn it properly. Not just pick at it, but actually learn to play it and sing it in a style that honoured his version. Once it was under my fingers rather than half-remembered, it started to move on its own. Martin always told me to take ideas and run with them. I haven’t run very far with this—I wouldn’t want it to. But there’s a jaunt and swing in mine now that isn’t in his more metred recording, enough… that it’s stopped feeling like an impression and started feeling like a song I play."
Ultimately, Wilks views the timing as karmic:
"It feels right that all of this lands fifty years after Crown of Horn. Some songs just sit there waiting for you to be ready for them. This one had been beckoning to me for some time."
Future Outlook
As the folk community looks toward the broader celebrations surrounding the half-century mark of Crown of Horn, Jon Wilks’s "Geordie" establishes a high benchmark for contemporary traditional interpretation. By treating historical material not as a museum artifact, but as a living instrument of personal expression, Wilks demonstrates the exact ethos that Martin Carthy championed for over half a century.
The single will be available across all major streaming and digital platforms this Friday, September 4th, supported by the evocative visual accompaniment filmed at Cheesefoot Head. For purists and newcomers alike, Wilks’s "Geordie" offers a masterclass in how to honor the ghosts of folk history while carving out one’s own undeniable space in the tradition.
Fans can pre-save and order the single via Jon Wilks’s Official Linktree and explore more of his ongoing projects by visiting his official website at www.jonwilks.online.
