John Joyce was a legend on the British

Great Britain

Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

 folk music

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

 scene. He dedicated his musical career to the twelve-string guitar. Blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

was his first love and he appeared with such Blues greats as Howlin' Wolf

Howlin' Wolf

Chester Arthur Burnett , known as Howlin' Wolf, was an influential American blues singer, guitarist and harmonica player....

, Jesse Fuller

Jesse Fuller

Jesse Fuller was an American one-man band musician, best known for his song "San Francisco Bay Blues".-Early life:...

, Reverend Gary Davis

Reverend Gary Davis

Reverend Gary Davis, also Blind Gary Davis, was an American blues and gospel singer and guitarist, who was also proficient on the banjo and harmonica...

, Sonny Terry

Sonny Terry

Saunders Terrell, better known as Sonny Terry was a blind American Piedmont blues musician. He was widely known for his energetic blues harmonica style, which frequently included vocal whoops and hollers, and imitations of trains and fox hunts.-Career:Terry was born in Greensboro, Georgia...

, and Brownie McGhee

Brownie McGhee

Walter Brown McGhee was a Piedmont blues singer and guitarist, best known for his collaborations with the harmonica player Sonny Terry.-Life and career:...

. Throughout his long career he has also played/appeared with The Levee Breakers, Davy Graham, Bert Jansch

Bert Jansch

Herbert "Bert" Jansch was a Scottish folk musician and founding member of the band Pentangle. He was born in Glasgow and came to prominence in London in the 1960s, as an acoustic guitarist, as well as a singer-songwriter...

, John Renbourn

John Renbourn

John Renbourn is an English guitarist and songwriter. He is possibly best known for his collaboration with guitarist Bert Jansch as well as his work with the folk group Pentangle, although he maintained a solo career before, during and after that band's existence .While most commonly labelled a...

, Paul Simon

Paul Simon

Paul Frederic Simon is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist.Simon is best known for his success, beginning in 1965, as part of the duo Simon & Garfunkel, with musical partner Art Garfunkel. Simon wrote most of the pair's songs, including three that reached number one on the US singles...

, Roy Harper

Roy Harper

Roy Harper is an English folk / rock singer-songwriter and guitarist who has been a professional musician since the mid 1960s...

, Al Stewart

Al Stewart

Al Stewart is a Scottish singer-songwriter and folk-rock musician.Stewart came to stardom as part of the British folk revival in the 1960s and 1970s, and developed his own unique style of combining folk-rock songs with delicately woven tales of the great characters and events from history.He is...

, Sandy Denny

Sandy Denny

Sandy Denny , born Alexandra Elene Maclean Denny, was an English singer and songwriter, perhaps best known as the lead singer for the folk rock band Fairport Convention...

, Strawbs, Velvet Opera

Elmer Gantry’s Velvet Opera

Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera, at various times also known as "Velvet Opera", was a British rock band active in the late 1960s. Members of the band would later become members of The Strawbs, Hudson Ford and Stretch.-History:...

, Ralph McTell, and Paul Brett

Paul Brett

Paul Brett is a classic rock guitarist. He played lead guitar with Strawbs, The Overlanders, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Elmer Gantry’s Velvet Opera, The Velvet Opera, Tintern Abbey, Fire, Roy Harper, Al Stewart, Lonnie Donegan, and switched to twelve string guitar in the 1970s.His first...

. He was also highly regarded as one of the best guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

 repairers in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

. He designed the 'JJ' series and the best selling 'Sandpiper' range of guitars made by Aria

Aria (guitar company)

Aria is a Japanese manufacturer of acoustic and electric guitars and basses.- History :Aria was formed in Japan in 1953 by Shiro Arai as Arai and Company. They began retailing acoustic guitars in 1960, although the company didn't actually start manufacturing their own until 1964. Aria arranged for...

.

Discography

• Levee Breakers - Decca EP - 1960s
• Velvet Opera - Ride a Hustler's Dream CBS - 1970
• Joyce's Choice Mixture - Black Lion - 1976
• Acoustic Power (with Paul Brett) - Fretdancer - 2000
• Statesboro Blues - Fretdancer - 2004