Summaries

Synopsis

Hailing from Milton, Cambridgeshire and, originally before that, Badwell Ash in Suffolk where Old Suffolk Boys is set - John Holder is oneof the most significant cross-disciplinary artists of our times. His strikingly personal style incorporates many years of robust classical training, of which Cambridge School of Art played a crucial part - in John's formative years as an Illustrator. There's a healthy and sometimes overt dose of proverbial British humour and satire laden in his work.

John's diverse interests come from his unwavering and almost boyish curiosity for life itself. Alongside a group of friends; he played a key partin importing Bluegrass music to the U.K and was at the very inception of the Cambridge Folk Festival over 50 years ago, and ever since hasperformed in numerous bands ranging from The Radio Cowboys and Holder's Heroes to John Holder & The Dead Cowboys with which he hasrecently released a new album to a close group of friends and family. Entitled 'Heroes', the album is a series of performances of quintessentialBluegrass songs from the many 'heroes' of the genre which started in the late 1930s and still continues to this day. It features songs by EarlScruggs, Townes Van Zandt, Emmylou Harris and Bill Monroe just to name a few. John even got to play on stage with 'the father of Bluegrass music' Bill Monroe. As John once put it; Bluegrass itself is a music for the people, 'it's not far from the grass to the stage' compared to a Rock N Roll Festival.

Bluegrass Music, a form of American roots music hailing from the great southern States of America, was influenced by the music of Appalachiaand various other styles, including gospel and jazz. Appalachian music itself has mixed roots in Irish, Scottish and English traditional music,which is where one might see the musical parallels inherent in the music played by old Suffolk boys.

John Holder is an avid shed-man. He was a member of The Shed Club, a group of six friends who were founded on a collective promise - acreed, informally known as 'Shedism'. This mutual unspoken agreement was founded on the principle that money would never exchange hands - only the lending, exchanging and bartering of tools, skills and ideas. The group included close friends of John & Gaye Lockwood's (his wife) including fellow shed-man and radio producer Nick Barraclough and travelling showman Dick Bourne - another shed-man. A man's love of sheds is (and was) a big part of the national culture; particularly in East Anglia which comprises of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire - one that still resonates today with John, in his own back garden where there lies a barn and shed - just a stone's throw away from the rear of the house, much like his studio is too.

In a career that has spanned over 60 years, John shows no sign of putting his drawing tools, nor his craft, to rest. His passion for creativity resonates across mediums, and is borderless by definition. He himself cares not for what comes next, but for the present; the now and living in the moment. John is like me when I was a child - and how I am now, only with much more life experience and the experience that it givesmaturity.