Synth-pop's one-man show, with a mime at his side

Howard Jones was born in Hythe, Hampshire, in 1955, to Welsh parents, and spent his early years in Rhiwbina, Cardiff. He is the eldest of four brothers, all musicians. He started piano lessons at seven, and when he was nine the family moved to Canada, to Nepean, Ontario, near Ottawa. There he joined his first band, a progressive and classic rock group that he founded in 1971 and played with until 1972, when he returned to England for good.

In the mid-1970s he studied at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, but left after two and a half of the three years, because he did not want to be a classical pianist. A Buddhist practitioner named Bill Bryant became a major influence and wrote lyrics for some of his songs. Back in High Wycombe, Jones played solo in local venues and invited the mime artist Jed Hoile to perform improvised choreography while he played behind him. In 1983 he hired the Marquee Club in London and invited record companies to come and see.

It worked. After a BBC Radio 1 session, he gained opening slots with China Crisis and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, and signed to WEA in mid-1983. His first single, “New Song”, came out in September, reaching the top 5 in the UK and the top 30 in the US, and he appeared on Top of the Pops on 22 September. Human's Lib followed in 1984, reached number one in the UK, and eventually went double platinum.

Between 1983 and 1986 Jones had ten UK top-40 singles, six of them in the top 10, among them “What Is Love?”, “Like to Get to Know You Well” and “Things Can Only Get Better”. “No One Is to Blame” reached number 4 in the US in 1986. He played Live Aid at Wembley Stadium in 1985, has sold over eight million albums, and was described by AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine as one of the defining figures of mid-1980s synth-pop. His parents ran his fan club.