Howard Jones
- Born John Howard in Southampton on 23 February 1955
- British musician, singer and songwriter
- He took up piano lessons at the age of seven
- He and his family temporarily moved to Canada when he was a teenager. It was here he joined his first band, a progressive rock-group called Warrior.
- After returning to the UK he began teaching piano lessons for spare income – he married one of his students and they have been together for over 30 years (he did more than tickle her ivories!)
- He was known for sporting an eccentric, throwaway hairstyle throughout the 1980s
- When starting out in local venues he employed a mime artist to perform improvised choreography as he played behind him
- He met Buddhist practitioner Bill Bryant, who wrote lyrics for some of his songs and was a major influence in this period
- He is a practising Buddhist and is part of the Sōka Gakkai movement and is musical director of one of its choirs, the Glorious Life Chorus.
- He worked in a clingfilm factory for several years whilst trying to make it as a musician.
- In 1984, he released his debut album, Human’s Lib, which charted at #1 in the UK.
- He had ten top 40 hit singles in the UK between 1983 and 1986; six of those 10 singles reached the top ten
- His parents, Thelma and John, both ran his fan club in the 1980s.
- Of his fame he says “”My songs are not about drug-taking or debauchery or rock and roll. They’re about positive thinking and challenging people’s ideas. I wasn’t fashionable. I never got good reviews. But I’m proud of the fact that I wasn’t liked by the media…”
- He performed his track “Hide and Seek,” at Live Aid on a piano belonging to Freddie Mercury.
- He is a vegetarian and in 1987, he opened a vegetarian restaurant in the West Village of New York called Nowhere, his guests included Madonna, Lou Reed and Michael J. Fox.
- His hits include: “New Song”, “What Is Love?”, “Like to Get to Know You Well” and “Things Can Only Get Better”
