Larry Mindel

Larry Mindel writes songs in the tradition of acoustic guitar songwriters who reach over into jazz. Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Rickie Lee Jones, late-era David Crosby, John Martyn - these are his touchstones.

In 6 albums since 2016 (including one ready for release in 2027), and a catalogue now of over 300 songs, he has pursued a varied creative path. Recent work encompasses jazz-inflected ballads, acoustic guitar-driven story songs, classic rock and blues, and lush soundscapes. Throughout, the constant has been a distinctive songwriting voice: melodic, harmonically adventurous, centred on stories of where and how people live in our times.

His music career began at the age of 15, playing London's West End clubs that are now the stuff of legend: Soho clubs like Bunjie's and Les Cousins. While studying in Leeds he formed a free music collective that brought together classical, jazz, folk and rock musicians under the umbrella name, The Leeds Music Circus. Moving to England's south coast, he fell in love with the rich folk traditions of Hampshire and Sussex: influences which have remained in his writing.  In his 30s and 40s Larry stepped away from writing songs, and made music for local arts projects including fundraising projects for hospices and soundtracks for contemporary dance. He supplemented this with his role as frontman and lead singer in function and covers bands.

One evening in 2000 that changed again.  ‘I was passing the evening in my bedsit in Antwerp’ Larry explains, ‘And I picked up the guitar I always travelled with. Instead of playing a Paul Simon or John Martyn song, as I did most evenings, I looked out over the Scheldt River coursing through the Belgian city. I thought of the places I had lived, the people I had met, and the lives they led. I wrote a simple song for an old dancer I had met on a train to Cumbria. Over several hours, he had told me of his life in London and New York, of how glamour and squalor, love and sorrow, wealth and homelessness had constantly criss-crossed through his life. I wrote a song for him - and in doing so, I reinvigorated my love of writing songs.'

This started a process of learning, experiment and change as he has become the songwriter we see today. Songs about people in unusual or far away places, both physical and metaphorical - geographically, in time and in the heart.  His songs are set in the frozen Antarctic, New York City, a fragile wetlands in New Zealand, the Thames estuary, the dry red dust of the Australian outback, his home city of London, the lowlands of East Anglia, the remote islands of the Scottish Hebrides.... and everywhere in-between.

This started to reach fruition in the album made under the band name, Night Flight, in 2016. Several albums have followed. An album of simple demos with the Dutch artist Anouk Scheepens in 2018. Then, the piano-based album Love in Troubled Times recorded in semi lockdown in the Kent countryside, featuring young London jazz musicians. Recorded in London and the Hebrides, he then worked with producer Matteo Galesi to make the album Still. This featured much-loved songs such as  Let The Wind Carry Me, built on sacrifices people like his grandfather made to flee persecution from pre-war Europe to make a new life; The Endurance, about the discovery of Shackleton's ship deep in the Antarctic; and Okarito Ways, which celebrates the stunning beauty of a threatened lagoon in New Zealand.

2025 saw a new maturity in his songwriting, and the release of Tales From The Undertow: an album made with a new band who share Larry's loves of classic jazz, rock and folk played on real instruments without artifice. Made at the iconic analog Cowshed Studios in London. Featuring Pete Oxley on electric guitar, Alastair Gavin on piano, harmonium and other keys, Rob Levy on double bass and Rick Finlay on drums. With Rebecca Phillips and Makeda Fall on backing vocals. James Johnston taking charge on the desk. 

Larry's new album, Reason Follows Rhyme, is complete and available for review on request.