Honest Jon’s is an independent record shop based on Portobello Road in Ladbroke Grove, London, going since 1974. The shop is owned and run by Mark Ainley and Alan Scholefield, who took over from one of the original proprietors, ‘Honest’ Jon Clare. Their record label of the same name is run in conjunction with Damon Albarn

Damon Albarn

Damon Albarn is an English singer-songwriter and record producer who has been involved in many high profile projects, coming to prominence as the frontman and primary songwriter of Britpop band Blur...

.

The shop sells a multitude of genres of music on vinyl and CD, specializing in jazz, blues, reggae, dance, soul, folk and outernational. It runs a mail order business from www.honestjons.com.

Formed in 2002, the label has released such critically acclaimed compilations as its London Is The Place For Me series, excavating the music of young Black London, in the years after the Second World War; also collections of British folk, Port Of Spain soca, Afro-Cuban jazz from the Bronx, Jamaican dancehall; and retrospectives of artists including Moondog

Moondog

Moondog, born Louis Thomas Hardin , was a blind American composer, musician, poet and inventor of several musical instruments. Moving to New York as a young man, Moondog made a deliberate decision to make his home on the streets there, where he spent approximately twenty of the thirty years he...

, Maki Asakawa

Maki Asakawa

was a Japanese jazz and blues singer, lyricist and composer.Born in Ishikawa Prefecture, after graduating high school she worked as a civil servant for a short time before moving to Tokyo...

, Bettye Swann

Bettye Swann

Bettye Swann is an American soul music singer, best known for her 1967 hit song "Make Me Yours".-Career:...

 and Cedric Im Brooks & The Light of Saba. It has released original music by Candi Staton

Candi Staton

Candi Staton is an American soul and gospel singer, best known for her 1970 remake of Tammy Wynette's "Stand By Your Man" and her 1976 disco hit "Young Hearts Run Free". In 2007, Staton was inducted into the Christian Music Hall of Fame.-Early years:...

, Actress, T++, Hypnotic Brass Ensemble

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble is a 9-piece, Chicago-based brass group featuring 8 sons of Phil Cohran on horns.Originally from Chicago, the brothers started as a street ensemble before recording in 2004. They have performed with Mos Def, Aquilla Sadalla, Phil Cohran, The Recipe, Nomadic Massive, Tony...

, Mark Ernestus, Trembling Bells

Trembling Bells

Trembling Bells is an English folk rock group formed by drummer Alex Neilson, a musician with a strong history of free and improvised playing with several artists...

, The Good, The Bad & The Queen, Simone White

Simone White

-Life and career:White moved to NYC from London in 2000 where she began to play music onstage. She recorded her first album with producer David Domanich and musician and friend Frank Bango. White released the album, The Sincere Recording Company Presents, in 2003 on Bango's label The Sincere...

, Shackleton

Shackleton

Shackleton may refer to:* Avro Shackleton, a maritime patrol aircraft* Ernest Shackleton, Irish explorer best known as the leader of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, 1914–17* Shackleton , dubstep producer...

, Michael Hurley

Michael Hurley

Michael Hurley is an American singer/guitarist. He also plays the fiddle and piano. He grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.-Career:...

, Terry Hall

Terry Hall

Terry Hall may refer to:*Terry Hall , English singer with The Specials, Fun Boy Three, The Colourfield*Terry Hall , English ventriloquist who worked with his puppet, Lenny the Lion...

, and the Moritz Von Oswald

Moritz Von Oswald

Moritz von Oswald , half of both Basic Channel and Maurizio, went on to become one of the most influential producers of techno music in the 1990s. In the 1980s he was percussionist for Palais Schaumburg and The Associates, but would segue into electronic music by the late 80s and early 90s...

 Trio, to name a handful. It recorded the chaabi orchestra of Abdel Hadi Halo on location in Algiers; Lobi Traore

Lobi Traoré

Lobi Traoré was a Malian musician. He was born in the village of Bakaridianna, on the Niger River close to Ségou and died in Bamako. His singing has been described in The Economist as "flat, strangely penetrating tone, somewhere between rap and blues".His breakthrough album, Bamako, produced by...

 and Kokanko Sata Doumbia in Bamako; and Tony Allen

Tony Allen

Tony Allen may refer to:* Tony Allen , basketball player* Tony Allen , drummer with Fela Kuti and one of the founders of Afrobeat* Tony Allen , Irish performer, member of Foster & Allen with Mick Foster...

 in Lagos.

In 2008 Honest Jon's began a run of compilations of early recordings — mostly drawn from the EMI

EMI

The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...

Archive in Hayes — stretching back to the start of the twentieth century, covering all corners of the world: from the break-up of the Ottoman Empire more than a hundred years ago, to 1950s Beirut, to late-1920s Baghdad, to 1930s East Africa.