Update: Howard Jones 2000

HoJo Has A New CD was first published on August 29, 1997. At that point Howard Jones was on the verge of releasing a new CD entitled Angles & Lovers which has since changed to People which delightfully contains pictures of his fans.  It has been released worldwide from 1997 continuously through 1999 including the opening of his independent label, Dtox.

His singles "Let the People Have Their Say" and "Tomorrow Is Now" has been received with approval during touring with Culture Club and Human League in the summer of 1998 and continues.

According to Howard, Dtox primarily exists to function as a way of helping young artists make their first records without the pressure and then takes it to shop around to do a deal with presumably, a major recording company without wasting any studio time.

His roster includes DBA and Martin Grech. He continues the trend of '80s artists doing it on their own (John Taylor, formerly of Duran Duran and Curt Smith, formerly of Tears for Fears, for example) without a corporate watchdog in their creative midst.

In the last three years, HoJo has done incredible strides to increase his critical career and handled some personal loss with the suicide of his drummer, Kevin Wilkinson in 1999. A career downpoint (certainly from a US fan's point of view) came toward the ending of the millennium with two US dates cancelled, one on New Year's Eve and one for a Christmas radio show.

However, he has continually toured, though a major part was in Europe, and is receiving resurgence in interest and airplay for his music mostly based on his partnership with Seven Days Music, a German record company whom wanted to re-establish him.

HoJo also likes to keep everything in the family including music responsibilities. His son takes home-grown gig movies, his parents are the fan club administrators, his wife, Jan (yes, still married!) as office manager and his long-time manager's son is the tour manager. Very smart move.

Rhino Records were also are considering releasing a box set of Howard's career to date. It will be an anthology and currently does not have a release date; information has been a little scarce on that particular project from Rhino.

As for Year 2000, HoJo will release a newly finished CD (no title yet) that features Fayyaz Virji on trombone, Chris Storr on trumpet and Chris De Margary on tenor sax with an incredible 20 tracks done still including the drums of Kevin Wilkinson. Also on it will be a duet with Duncan Sheik that was written in France.

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