Baby Bird

Baby Bird began as the alias of Stephen Jones, a prolific British singer/songwriter who initiated his performing career as a member of the Dogs in Honey "anti-theater" troupe. After buying a four-track machine, he began making his first lo-fi home recordings; over the next several years, he wrote some 400 eclectic pop songs, ranging in content from surreal, comic narratives to intensely personal meditations. At the urging of friends, Jones sent out Baby Bird tapes to record companies, but his music was roundly rejected; however, Chrysalis Music did offer a publishing deal which Jones accepted, applying his earnings towards financing a series of independently-released, limited-edition collections. The first disc of material culled from the vast Baby Bird archives, I Was Born a Man, appeared in 1995; within the course of a year, three other acclaimed albums -- Bad Shave, Fatherhood, and The Happiest Man Alive -- followed, and won Jones a contract with Echo Records. Upon making the leap to a major label, Baby Bird mutated from a one-man project into a full band, as Jones assembled a backing group comprised of guitarist Luke Scott, bassist John Pedder, keyboardist Hugh Chadbourne, and drummer Rob Gregory. In this new incarnation, (now renamed Babybird) they debuted in late 1996 with the album Ugly Beautiful, a lush, sparkling collection of re-recordings of favorite songs from Jones' back catalogue, all selected by fans by means of postcard ballots included in the first four albums. In 1997, the last in the series of Baby Bird albums, Dying Happy (Baby Bird 5) was assembled; issued in a limited pressing of 1000 copies, the disc compiled a number of previously unreleased songs that Jones had kicking around. It states on the back "This does not represent, and should not be confused with the work of BABYBIRD THE BAND. This is the sole work of Stephen Jones, who recorded these songs between 1988 & 1995 on a four track tape recorder." A 2002 box-set of all the lo-fi recordings also included a new and previously unreleased LP entitled The Black Album, consisting of dreamy, falsetto-led pop, in a similar vein to Dying Happy. Jones can currently be found lurking in the background as the brainchild of orchestral pop group Death of the Neighbourhood.