Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Therapy is undervalued, especially when it is one of your own making, your own source of companionship, your own place and time finding ways to defeat the false fears and ills that cloud our days and our souls; the damage wrought by the defeat in advance, the conscious, overwhelming beating before you have taken to the ring…these are the moments in which therapy, in caring for oneself, is to be applauded, urged, and followed through upon.

Jon Wilks approaches his latest album, Before I Knew What Had Begun I Had Already Lost,conscious of how his own prescribed therapy had taught him during a period of illness and convalescence how to focus on what lay in front of him rather than what he may have lost; it is a sense of fortune for many that such an avenue and road to self-healing exists, for in giving yourself to the art, what you believed was lost, is always in sight, it is just that the view may have changed and altered in perspective.

Having wowed the public and fan alike with his Birmingham songs of the last couple of collections, the acclaimed guitarist took advantage of his situation and delved into world once more of the less well-known traditional pieces, and spending time composing and creating three new compositions, aspects, of his own from his wealth of mindful talent.

With time on his side, Jon has once more been able to work with old friends and colleagues on the album, and in Jon Nice and Jackie Oates, as well as the contribution gained from using the legendary Martin Simpson’s banjo, Before I Knew What Had Begun I Had Already Lost is a testimony to the beauty of organic development and beauty of the player’s mind and as tracks such as Tape Machine, Greek Street, Gallons of Brandy/Fox Tell, Lofty Tall Ship, the melancholic but immensely beautiful The Old Miner, and the telling Banjo Therapy leave their mark on the listener, what transpires is a healing, a satisfaction of the restorative medicine in which we are often tempted to neglect, but when swallowed, leads to salvation and expression of joy.

A wonderfully adept and admired recording, a beginning which shows that the winner is always life; should we wish to embrace it fully.

Jon Wilks releases Before I Knew What Had Begun I Had Already Lost on May 5th

Ian D. Hall