Joe Wilkes delivers an urgent, brand of fingerstyle guitar wrapped in self-deprecating humour and sharp political storytelling. His fifth album, Hope In My Chest, Fire In My Throat (2026), is both a tribute to folk tradition and a challenge to its comfort zones, a charged mix of traditional material and originals shaped by bereavement, illness, addiction, and survival.

Wilkes came up in Coventry, at a time when it was long past caring whether it lived or died. Among the skeletal factories and terminally bored high streets, he learned the first rule of provincial survival - no one is coming to save you.

London didn’t roll out a carpet for him. He had a series of small bands, busking his way across Europe when money ran short. His anarcho-acoustic group held a residency at the 12 Bar Club, leaving audiences unsure whether they had witnessed a show or a public unravelling. Paris offered calmer ground, there he met arranger Antoine Reininger, whose disciplined approach helped shape Wilkes’s early recordings.

Returning to South London, he made his debut album Spotlight (2006). The record earned him a quiet but loyal following. Two more albums followed: Here On This Frontline (2009) and Looking for the Grave of García Lorca (2012), each pushing him further toward a political and literary style of songwriting.

In 2015 he smashed his left hand in a drunken misadventure that would have humiliated a less stubborn musician into retirement. Instead, he switched to piano, hammering his way through sets in New York the following year, fingers recovering little by little.

2018 saw the long-awaited release of Japanese Elvis; a collection of mainly piano songs, suicide love ballads and cryptic political forebodings. It was received well including 5-star reviews but like the previous 3 releases, didn’t break through to more than a handful of followers.

During lockdown Wilkes attempted some interpretations of ‘real’ folk songs. An initial double A side vinyl release Seven Gypsies / Hares On The Mountain came out and was played by Cerys Matthews and endorsed by Robert Wyatt.

The following period saw Wilkes involved in personal and legal problems in between trying out new folk sounds and styles. He sees modern folk as increasingly ornamental, polished and polite whereas it can and should speak to the brutality and beauty of modern life.