Jan Dukes de Grey

Jan Dukes de Grey

A strange progressive folk-rock outfit who ... started out as a duo of Michael Bairstow and Derek Noy, multi-instrumentalists who stood midway between Tyrannosaurus Rex (the pre-T.Rex Marc Bolan acoustic outfit) and Jethro Tull, doing all original material by Noy, very short all-acoustic songs, some with strange lyrics and highlighted by odd, dissonant flute passages.

For their second album, Mice and Rats in the Loft, recorded for Transatlantic in 1971, Jan Dukes de Grey became a trio with the addition of drummer Dennis Conlan and also assumed a more progressive approach to their work ... but their continued low-wattage approach to progressive music made Jan Dukes de Grey less than competitive against the likes of the Strawbs and other ex-folk outfits.(AllMusicInteresting, and IIRC, almost a fixture on the British rock festival circuit at the time. File under: Odd Folk-Rockers.

Discography: 1970 Sorcerers     1971 Mice and Rats in the Loft

In the music library: Anthems In EdenSun Symphonica

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© Ian Hughes 2015