He gave lessons to Keith Richards, had Bruce Springsteen cover his songs and was copied by Eric Clapton. His Times obituary described him as a guitarist who ‘should have been superstar’
Major player: Wizz Jones was still performing music until earlier this year
Wizz Jones, described as one of the seminal musicians of his time, a part of Britain’s beatnik movement who was influenced by the words of Jack Kerouac and music of Woody Guthrie, has died, aged 86.
Raymond Ronald Jones was born in Thornton Heath in those dark, pre-war days of April 1939. “Wizz” was a nickname given to him by his mother because of his love for performing conjuring tricks, but it stuck with him throughout a music career that sbegan in the 1950s and continued until his final gig in February this year.
Jones spent his youth in and around Croydon, including at the Sir Philip Game Boys’ Club, where he was part of the same group of youngsters learning musical instruments and telling gags as Roy Hudd, as Wizz recalled in an online memoir about his Croydon roots.
Wizz Jones’s first regular gigs came with his first band, in the Leslie Arms, Addiscombe, when he was significantly under-age for a pub in the 1950s, at 17. He also played regularly at the Croydon Folk Club and The Oval Tavern.
He was a close friend of Croydon’s other folk hero, Ralph McTell.
But Jones’s influence extended far and wide. He gave guitar lessons to a teenaged Keith Richards, long before he formed the Rolling Stones with Mick Jagger. The young Eric Clapton would turn up for Wizz Jones gigs and sit in the front row, to study his guitar technique.
Timeless performer: Wizz Jones played from the late 1950s until 2025
And as his Times obituary recalls: “Characteristically, he remained blithely unaware when Bruce Springsteen covered When I Leave Berlin, a song he had written in 1971 about friends and relations living on different sides of the Berlin Wall.
“Springsteen had heard Jones’s recording at the time and more than 40 years later chose it to open a high-profile show in Berlin in 2012, turning the song into an emphatic celebration of reunification. Some months later a friend visited Jones at his modest, two-bedroom terrace house in Balham and asked him what he thought of Springsteen covering his song. ‘What song?’ Jones replied.”
Others who fell under his influence included Rod Stewart, Paul Simon and Bert Jansch.
Simeon Jones, Wizz’s son, posted this yesterday:
“With an extremely heavy heart, I’m letting you all know that my beloved father, the great Wizz Jones, passed away early this morning, two days after his 86th birthday.
“His loss has left a huge hole in the lives of our family and has robbed the music world of one of its precious treasures.
“His health declined rapidly this year and we thank Trinity Hospice for making his last few days as comfortable as possible.
“Always a humble man, these were his closing words at the end of his last ever gig earlier this year, February 28 2025: ‘Thanks to all the people – all over the world in fact – that heard my songs and my guitar playing, and came to my gigs for all those years. Thank you very much’.
“Wizz was worried about disappointing the audience with his now weak singing voice, but even more worried about letting them down by not showing up…
“I hope his wonderful music will live on and continue to make the world a richer place.”
- Wizz Jones, folk musician and beatnik, was born on April 25, 1939. He died on April 27, 2025, aged 86
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
As featured on Google News Showcase
- Our comments section on every report provides all readers with an immediate “right of reply” on all our content. Our comments policy can be read by clicking here
Inside Croydon is a member of the Independent Community News Network
Wizz Jones was a great performer, though very modest about it. And he wrote some really fine songs. This one might be appropriate as a sort of finale:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu1Ahwqq6wA
But as one of the last of the beatniks it’s fun to go back to this famous interview he did with Alan Whicker who was investigating local reactions to an “invasion of long-hairs” in Newquay back in 1960! A classic bit of vintage TV…
We have lost a fine human being who has left behind beautifully crafted songs. His guitar playing was among the most accomplished on the folk scene. What a loss.