"Technically they stand head to head with the best of their generation...Jon Boden plays fiddle with an earthy vigour that's utterly compelling and sings in a frantic breathless manner as if the hounds of hell are taking lumps out of his backside, while John Spiers harmonises and plays urgent driving melodeon to a very high standard indeed...halfway to reinventing the style without even realising it…"  fRoots Magazine.

"Strong vocals, excellent musicianship, dynamics, drive and passion"BBC Radio 2 folk website.

John Spiers and Jon Boden have been consistently wowing audiences up and down the country for the last 5 years with their unique blend of traditional English folk song with a contemporary twist and hi-octane dance tunes which get everyone dancing.  Spiers & Boden now find themselves at the forefront of the new folk revival.

Their 5th album, Vagabond, is due for release via Navigator May 26th  2008 and the 11 tracks focus on the role of the itinerant and outsider, a theme prominent in a lot of traditional material, from ‘Robin Hood’ to the ‘Beggar Boy’.

Winners of the Best Duo category at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in both 2004 and 2006, and a Critic’s choice nomination at the BBC World Music Awards, John & Jon are also founding members of the wildly ambitious 11 piece Big-Band folk phenomenon, Bellowhead (Best Live Act in 2005, 2007, 2008, Observer Top 20 albums of 2007).

They have enjoyed a long-term collaboration with Eliza Carthy as The Rat catchers and performed on one of her Nationwide Mercury Prize nominated albums, Anglicana. Jon Boden even managed to find time to release his own, self-penned album of contemporary indie rock songs, ‘Painted Lady’. Jon Boden (singer, fiddle, guitar, stomp-box) follows in the footsteps of many of the great folk-singers with his theatrical style.  At the same time Jon plays fiddle “with an earthy vigour that’s utterly compelling”. Jon was born in 1977 in Chicago, but grew up in Winchester. He graduated in Medieval Studies from Durham and Composition for Theatre from the London College of Music.

John Spiers (melodeon, concertina) has taken the traditional squeezebox styles and blended them with his knowledge of contemporary dance music to create an infectious acoustic groove which sounds like folk music but has an amazing effect on the uninitiated. Born in Birmingham, John grew up in Abingdon (home to one of the few truly traditional morris sides) with a morris dancing father who designed batteries and later did pioneering work in the Solar panel industry, and with a mother who was a big fan of Nic Jones and Martin Carthy.  He has a Masters degree in Natural Sciences from King's College Cambridge (Genetics), 4 A levels and a swimming certificate. His other notable achievements  (ahem..) include appearing on Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway (playing the melodeon with Stephen Gately from Boyzone !) and being a finalist on the Young Krypton Factor.

“Anyone who needs convincing that the current folk revival is becoming as intriguing, varied and experimental as it was back in the 1960s should check out the remarkable career of John Spiers and Jon Boden. In just a few years, they have established themselves as the finest instrumental duo on the traditional scene, and the contemporary equivalent of Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick….”- The Guardian