Jona Lewie

While he wasn’t one of the primary titles on Stiff Records, Jona Lewie was one particular irrepressible personas who gave the pioneering British indie label its absolutely unique flavor. Created John Lewis, Lewie got his begin in the early-’70s pub rock and roll picture, playing keyboards for the Sussex group Brett Marvin & the Thunderbolts. Bizarrely, the group liked its greatest achievement beneath the Lewie-helmed alias Terry Dactyl & the Dinosaurs, rating a U.K. Best Five strike in 1972 with “Seaside Shuffle.” Nevertheless, subsequent releases beneath the name didn’t duplicate that achievement, and Lewie departed the music group. He resurfaced on Stiff in 1978 like a single artist, performing pub rock and roll and new influx tunes inside a dried out, deadpan, Ian Dury-ish tone of voice. Most special was his simultaneous flavor for musical nostalgia (English music hall, skiffle, etc.), as evidenced on many slashes from his debut record, Alternatively Which Fist. Lewie also participated in the 1978 End up being Stiff bundle tour (the label’s second). In 1980, Lewie have scored a high 20 U.K. strike using the self-effacing one “You’ll Always Discover Me in your kitchen at Celebrations,” which, regarding to star, was support vocalist Kirsty MacColl’s first program for the label. Lewie trumped it almost a year afterwards with “End the Cavalry,” a unusual mixture of anti-war protest, brass music group arrangements, and Xmas sentiment. Amazingly, the one hit the very best Five and became something of the Christmas regular in the U.K., where it had been trotted away every holidays and highlighted on numerous Xmas compilations. Stiff rushed out another record, 1981’s Center Skips Defeat, to capitalize, but lightning would just strike double, and Lewie released his last one in 1983.