32 Facts About Vashti Bunyan

Jennifer Vashti Bunyan was born on 2 March 1945 and is an English singer-songwriter.

Vashti Bunyan began her career in the mid-1960s and released a debut album, Just Another Diamond Day, in 1970.

Vashti Bunyan released two more albums, Lookaftering in 2005, and Heartleap in 2014.

Vashti Bunyan was born in South Tyneside in 1945, the youngest of three children of John Vashti Bunyan and Helen Webber.

Vashti Bunyan was told that she was named after a boat that had belonged to her father.

Vashti Bunyan has been said to be descended from John Bunyan, author of The Pilgrim's Progress, but she has denied this.

At age 18, Vashti Bunyan visited New York City, discovered the music of Bob Dylan through his The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan album, and decided that she wanted to be a musician.

Vashti Bunyan released a follow-up, "Train Song", produced by Canadian Peter Snell and released on Columbia in May 1966.

Vashti Bunyan said later that she had specifically wanted to be a pop singer, not a folkie, and that the choice had been hers.

Vashti Bunyan recorded more songs for Immediate Records, and made a brief appearance in the 1967 documentary Tonite Let's All Make Love in London with her song "Winter Is Blue".

Vashti Bunyan said she had enjoyed performing on TV pop shows, but felt as if she was "watching from the outside".

Vashti Bunyan heard from singer-songwriter Donovan that he was hoping to set up a community on Skye, a "West Coast Renaissance" of artists, musicians and poets, and Bunyan, whose "mother's grandfather had been a Romany", and Lewis bought an old wagon and a horse from a Romany traveller and set off on a 650-mile trek to Skye from south London.

In late 1969, Vashti Bunyan returned briefly to Boyd in London and recorded fourteen songs for her first LP over a six-week period in his Sound Techniques studio, with assistance from guitarist Simon Nicol and violinists Dave Swarbrick of Fairport Convention and Robin Williamson of the Incredible String Band, and string arranger Robert Kirby.

Vashti Bunyan later discovered that she had been pregnant with her first child while recording the album.

Vashti Bunyan left Berneray with Lewis in April 1970 and returned briefly to London in an unsuccessful attempt to resume her musical career.

Vashti Bunyan said that for decades after that she saw it as a failure and could not listen to it.

Vashti Bunyan has said that she completely lost confidence in herself and her abilities when, for the first time, in a television show, she saw and heard Joni Mitchell sing.

Disappointed, Vashti Bunyan left the music industry in 1971 and moved with Lewis for a few months to the Incredible String Band's Glen Row cottages in the Scottish Borders, then walked to the west coast of Ireland and returned to Scotland.

Vashti Bunyan spent much of the ensuing thirty years raising her three children.

In 2001, Banhart wrote to Vashti Bunyan asking for advice, which began her connection with many of the contemporary performers who cite her work.

In 2005, encouraged by the positive reaction to the re-release of Just Another Diamond Day, Vashti Bunyan recorded and released a second album, Lookaftering, on Fat Cat Records, 35 years after the first.

Vashti Bunyan performed songs from both of her solo albums and some of the rare material from the unreleased Oldham sessions.

In 2007, Vashti Bunyan collaborated with novelist Rodge Glass on a song entitled "The Fire" for a compilation album Ballads of the Book, which was devised to combine Scottish writers with Scottish singers.

Vashti Bunyan provided vocals on three songs for the debut solo album of former Jack frontman Anthony Reynolds, British Ballads.

In January 2008, Vashti Bunyan said she was in the process of recording a new album.

In June 2008, Vashti Bunyan appeared at London's Royal Festival Hall with the Heritage Orchestra as part of Massive Attack's Meltdown, in a live performance of Vangelis' Blade Runner soundtrack, singing "Rachel's Song" as sung by Mary Hopkin on the original soundtrack.

In 2011, Vashti Bunyan's cover of John Martyn's "Head and Heart" appeared on the tribute album, Johnny Boy Would Love This.

In June 2014, Vashti Bunyan announced her third and final album, Heartleap.

In 2022, Vashti Bunyan published a memoir, Wayward: Just Another Life to Live.

In May 2024, it was announced that Vashti Bunyan would receive an honorary doctorate from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in July 2024.

In 2008, Vashti Bunyan was labelled "the Godmother of Freak Folk" for her role in inspiring the "new generation of folk experimentalists including Devendra Banhart and Adem".

Vashti Bunyan's music has been categorized as folk, psychedelic folk, or new folk.