Only a few more days left to order a shirt to collect on the tour!

Pre-ordering allows us to offer the full range of sizes in both men’s and women’s styles – but orders must be in by the END OF APRIL!

We’ll have some t-shirts available for sale on tour for those who haven’t pre-ordered, but the choice will be much more limited as it isn’t cost-effective to stock everything.

No mail order at this stage – collection on tour ONLY – though after the tour we will look at whether we can also offer a mail-order option for people who couldn’t join us.

Pre-order details here.

A new video for a song by John Jones and the Reluctant Ramblers “Black and White Bird”:

Come and hear Black and White Bird live on the walking tour through Devon in May.

Rowan Godel , the wonderful voice on Diamonds on the Water, also sings on “Black and White Bird” and will be joining John for all the gigs on the Walking Tour. Other members of the Reluctant Ramblers will include Lindsey Oliver, the great stand-up bass player who added such depth to the album; the powerful Oyster rhythm section of Al Scott and Dil Davies; and the multi-instrumentalist and regular Rambler Tim Cotterell. A formidable band of troubadours who will be strolling (!!) through the Devon countryside. New songs , great tunes, maybe even a dance and a chance to re-connect with the landscape at a natural  pace. JJ

[JJ writes] At last a break in Oysterband touring and I can look forward to this year’s Walking Tour. Crossing Devon north to south, taking in Exmoor and Dartmoor, has long appealed and my association with Devon goes back many years. My earliest ‘singing sessions’ were a haze of alcohol and harmony out in the pubs of Dartmoor and the rural villages of Mid-Devon. For a boy from a mill-town on The Pennines this really was another world. I must have sung Tavistock Goosey Fair for 3 years before I finally realised what the words were.

The Two Moors Way, The Tarka Trail and The Mariners’ Way are the three long distance paths we will touch upon but, as always, the beauty and character of the walking tours are the deviations to find that special place, the historic landmark, that bit of history or just a great pub. Check out our route and let us know of any special place – local knowledge is vital – and, best of all, come and join us. We keep it relaxed and fun and each night I have a great band of musicians with me, who walk as well, to round off the day with a gig. Hope to meet you there. JJ

JJ describes a typical day out with himself and the Reluctant Ramblers [not entirely seriously – Ed]. “I have often  jokingly characterised long distance walks as two hours of optimistic chatter, followed by two hours of relaxed momentum and a sense of growing invulnerability, followed by two hours of creeping anxiety and painful niggles, followed by two hours of  “who the hell had the idea for doing this walk” and getting ready to kill someone..!! Keeping your body and mind together beyond 16/18 miles is a mental feat as well as a physical one. Niggles and pains come but you can walk through them and they go. Blisters are something else but even their raw pain becomes numb after a while…but the mind games go on and the erosion of confidence with each stumble, as each stile gets bigger and harder to get over, is much harder to deal with. Writing as someone who could dramatically flare up on tour if the white wine wasn’t cold enough (!), dealing with the mind games has been the hardest part and the most self-revelatory. Bursts of savage short temper, loss of energy, loss of confidence, out in the hills and mountains as the rain falls and dusk approaches, with 2 miles of knee-sapping descent still to go, all become redundant, pointless, even laughable…but most of all, self-defeating. Concentrate on foot-placement, avoid jarring steps, forget everything except getting down to the road, the car, the pub and the best pint of your life. Later, as you sit there, warmed through, talking endlessly, your knees are gone, you may never walk again…but you did it.. and that’s when we get up to sing.” JJ

NEW tour details here for May’s walking tour of Devon with John Jones and the Reluctant Ramblers: and initial draft walk details here.

JJ says: “I am pleased to announce that I have been asked to be President of The Powys Ramblers Association and have accepted. My walking has always been very individualistic and although this title sounds grand, ramblers are a very down-to earth bunch of people and they share a passion for the part of Mid-Wales where I do so much of my walking…and they are Oysterband fans!”

There are still places remaining to join John Jones on a walk to the source of the River Arrow, down a hidden valley, past an ancient celtic church and on to a good pub!

See John and the Reluctant Ramblers play their final gig of 2013 in the Burton Hotel on the evening of the walk.

See here for details

Walking along Hergest Ridge on the 2012 walk

Do you have photos of the Song of The Downs walking tour? Can you let us have copies so we can share the best ones with other people and use them on Facebook and on this website? If you have just a few then you could email them to info@jj-rr.org; but if you have a larger number then there may be better options. (Dropbox is free, easy to use and works well for sending larger batches of photos).

Addendum: we also plan to produce another photo book from the tour so really would appreciate the original images and not have to copy them from posts on Facebook which are lower resolution and do not look so good when printed. Please use a “cloud” service such as dropbox or sugar sync, or copy them to a CD and post them. For the latter, please send an email to info@jj-rr.org and we will send you an address to post a CD to. Another alternative is to put them on a memory stick and lend it to Tom when you see him at a festival or gig. Send an email to make contact.

Owing to popular demand, we have decided to do one more print run for the t-shirt from JJ’s walking tour, and to make it available by mail order (limited period only). Details and orders here.