Jago from the top
‘TINY giant’ began life as ‘JAGO’ all the way back in the year 2000.
JAGO began life with cousins (and distinctly average guitarists) Matthew Mead & Steve Renaut getting together to see if they could turn the ideas in their heads, into something resembling complete songs… within a short time a handful of simple tunes were ready to go, and it was time to release them to a wider audience.
Meady’s obsession with ITV weather girl Becky Jago gave them a name, and the songs were played to a select audience of friends and family.
One of those friends was Wayne Elvin, already a highly polished and creative lead guitarist – he felt there was potential in the songs and he soon joined to make the duo a trio.
JAGO performed as an acoustic trio for a couple of years, and with Wayne bringing his style and influence to the writing, the set list quickly grew to well over of an hour of original songs, with a few select cover versions thrown in.
The next few years came in a blur and went in a flash… 3 albums and hundreds of gigs locally, including the biggest gig The Apollo Rooms in Harleston had seen for years, and Headline performances at The Waterfront & Arts Centre in Norwich… the call of London followed and JAGO performed at Spittlefields Market, The Garage, Elephant & Castle, The Water Rats Theatre and The Dublin Castle.
This led to a publishing deal with Red Admiral Records, under the name ‘Hardly Mozart’ due to the fact a Greek boy band had copyrighted the name JAGO!
It quickly dawned on the intrepid trio, that it was time to move the project on to a full band – to this end a third cousin was dragged into the mix (that’s right, it’s Norfolk after all) in Guitarist and Bass player Matthew Wilkinson… drummer Danny Peck was added (after auditions) and the full line-up of JAGO was complete.
Families and other commitments saw ‘Hardly Mozart’ call it a day after many hardworking years, and this led to a more relaxed resumption of the original acoustic trio of Meady, Steve and Wayne writing and performing locally.
Every band has it’s share of bad times, and in the summer of 2023 JAGO were rocked by the worst news imaginable… when Lead guitarist, song writing partner and lifelong friend Wayne gave us the terrible news that he had been diagnosed with a brain tumour.
Despite terrible odds and a gruelling treatment schedule, Wayne was somehow still able to write with the band AND perform live several times during his illness and treatments.
Tragically, after the bravest fight you are ever likely to see, Wayne passed away peacefully on the 7th May 2024… it is a day that will live in the memory of the many, many friends and family that knew him and loved him dearly, he was an amazing individual and we carry him with us every time we take the stage forever more.
During the countless dark humoured conversations we had throughout his treatment, he made us promise that we would continue to write and perform with somebody else, though it seemed an impossible suggestion at the time, we made the promise.
That promise became what you see here now – and with JAGO member Matthew Wilkinson coming back on board as lead guitarist – that promise became ‘TINY giant’.
