Diana Jones - Song to a Refugee

The Guardian 0

(Proper)
Jones’s sorrowful vocals bear witness to the dreams and hardships of those crossing the US-Mexico border

Brought up in New York by adoptive parents, Diana Jones later traced her birth family to Tennessee and a musician grandfather, and her records have, appropriately, had a spare, back-country atmosphere and told tales of hard times and dislocation.

This song cycle about the plight of refugees resonates with her previous work, although its genesis stems from a friendship with the actor and human rights activist Emma Thompson, who, Jones says, “called me out of writer’s block”. It’s a finely wrought piece of work, tender in its treatment of bruised lives, but unflinching in its gaze. Jones’s solemn, sorrowful vocals are sparingly accompanied by producer and instrumentalist David Mansfield, and her stories of refugee lives are deftly drawn.