Jack was raised in New York City and started learning folk songs during school summer holidays. He took up guitar in his teens, played alongside young hopefuls including Bob Dylan in Greenwich Village, and gigged in bars as a student. Early models included Pete, Peggy and Mike Seeger, Woody Guthrie, The Weavers, New Lost City Ramblers and Doc Watson, with traditional singers like Roscoe Holcombe and Clarence Ashley. Moving to England, he started writing songs after joining Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger’s Critics Group and learning banjo techniques from Tom Paley. He toured the UK and Ireland, actively opposing the Vietnam War, sang at benefits, union halls and clubs with Sandra Kerr, Frankie Armstrong, Leon Rosselson, and many others, recording his first album in 1979. He also worked on underground radio shows with Charles Parker, wrote and performed with Combine, the theatre and song group formed by ex-Critics Group members. By then Christy Moore and Moving Hearts had made his song “No Time for Love” known far and wide. In 2010 he teamed up with Texas singer-songwriter Stuart Michael Burns on a UK tour and made 2 albums together. Since moving to Hampshire, he’s been a regular singer at several clubs. His last album, “Endangered Species,” released in 2015 was recorded with a bespoke band (Ben Paley, fiddle; David Botting, vocals and guitar; Neil Warren, mouth harp; Zoe Warshaw, vocals and cello; Dominic Geraghty, bass) aimed at capturing the authentic Old-time sound in both traditional and original songs. Jack has put the same band back together to make “Misfits…” “It’s more exciting than ever,” he says “because the experience of working with these guys before has really paid off with a solid sound, greater precision and more varied contemporary songs, dealing with issues like terrorism, migrants and tragedies such as the Grenfell fire.” Jack continues, “Genuine folk singers are misfits by definition.” He feels it’s vital to keep adding new material which grapples with current issues and takes sides the way real folk songs have always done. So “Misfits Migrants and Murders” embraces them but does not forget to feature love and fun songs too.”