Beth Jeans Houghton is an English musician, composer, artist, animator and video director from Newcastle upon Tyne. She records under her own name, as Beth Jeans Houghton & The Hooves Of Destiny, and as Du Blonde.

Early life and first releases

Houghton is born in 1990 in Newcastle upon Tyne. She starts writing songs in her teens and leaves school at sixteen, buying a Fender Stratocaster and teaching herself to play it. She first performs in public in 2006. Her debut release is a limited-edition 7-inch EP issued by Bird Records in 2008.

Style and influences

Her work is associated with indie folk, folk and experimental folk. She is described as working in an alternative style that stands apart from more conventional acoustic singer-songwriters. Her influences include Frank Zappa, Vashti Bunyan, Four Tet and Love.

Career highlights

By 2008, Houghton has received attention from NME, which describes her as “a Joni Mitchell for the anti-folk generation.” Since her first performance in August 2006, she has played with a wide range of artists including Imogen Heap, Fionn Regan, Jeffrey Lewis, Scott Matthews, Josephine Foster, White Magic, King Creosote, Alasdair Roberts, PG Six, Dead Meadow, Voice of the Seven Woods, Tom Brosseau, St Vincent, Euros Childs, Diane Cluck, Jack Savoretti and Stephen Fretwell.

At the Green Man Festival, Devendra Banhart invites her to perform one of her songs during his main-stage set to an 8,000-strong crowd, and he describes her as “very lovely, a musical magician.” She also appears on the 2008 compilations We Are All Circling The Stars on Cosmos Recordings and Bearded Ladies Vol II on Bird/Finders Keepers.

Albums and later work

In 2012, she releases the album Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose as Beth Jeans Houghton & the Hooves of Destiny. From 2014, she begins writing and recording as Du Blonde.