David Nigel Lloyd

David Nigel Lloyd has intrigued West Coast audiences for over fifteen years. He sings of fallen pumpkin kings, propheteering fairy queens, East African juju men, idiot presidents, divine drunkards, eternal wanderers, ancient Irish warriors haunting dusty oil towns, and prisoners both great and small. In between he regales his audience with odd bits of erudition, shaggy biography, and the occasional surreal folk tale.

His latest release, Rivers, Kings and Curses, is a fine example of his painted gypsy caravan approach to what is at root, Celtic music. He is accompanied on the 15 track CD by some steller musicians including Incredible String Band cofounder Robin Williamson on harp and hardanger fiddle, legendary blues side-man Nat Dove on piano, and Banshee in the Kitchen’s Jill Egland on accordion and whistle.

DNL accompanies himself on an eight-stringed octar (a mongrel mandocello-like instrument); on a steel-stringed guitar with a unique drop-tuning; and on a nylon string guitar tuned regularly.

With his “spirited singing and full-bodied playing” (as Dirty Linen described it), DNL’s musical sensibility takes no backseat to his lyrical gifts. His repertoire blends ancient ballads with his own poetry and an oddball musical taste, which ranges easily from Kasmir to Peru in its influences. According to the LA Weekly, DNL is “some serious traditional fun.”

Music from his five critically acclaimed albums has aired on many college and NPR stations and once on Late Night with David Letterman. In the 1980s, David Nigel Lloyd and His Mojave Desert Ceilidh Band were both LA’s only Celtic folk rock band and the de facto house band of the Celtic Arts Center back in its Hollywood days.

Born in the British East Africa of the Mau Mau uprising, David lived in England and Germany before immigrating to America in 1962. His early music career found him in bands with the likes of Jethro Tull’s Glenn Cornick and Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame inductee, Billy Bass.

During the 1990s, David and his wife raised a daughter in a tiny village in the Southern Sierra Nevada. From there he embarked on many tours. In 1991 he composed for and appeared in Spike Stewart’s cult film, SHAKESPEARE’S PLAN 12 FROM OUTER SPACE. For the last seven years, as an Artist in Residence, DNL taught ballad singing in California’s Tulare and Kern County schools.