Simon Mayor

In 2011, Top That! Publishing published I'm A Parrot and Gobble! Gobble! Gobble!, two children's illustrated rhyming story books using the lyrics from two Mayor/James songs and with drawings by Hilary James.

In May 2000 he entered the UK's Classical Artist Top Ten with Mandolin Moods, a 'best of' release of his own compositions and classical works on Universal Records.

Alongside their other websites they set up Childrensmusic.co.uk in 1999.

He leads Britain's first modern mandolin quartet, the Mandolinquents. The quartet emerged from a 1997 line up, The Mandolin All-stars with multi-instrumentalists Maartin Allcock and Chris Leslie of Fairport Convention, and longtime musical partner, Hilary James. The Mandolinquents now includes the classical guitarist Gerald Garcia, multi-instrumentalist Richard Collins and Hilary James on mandobass and vocals.

Mayor cites fiddler and mandolinist Dave Swarbrick as a teenage musical influence, after being taught to sing in Tonic sol-fa by his father when very young. With his solo debut The Mandolin Album in 1990 he embarked on a series of recordings with the stated aim of giving the mandolin a uniquely British voice. The CD was made Recording of the Week on BBC Radio 2. His mix of original and traditional material alongside classical pieces has been noted by BBC World Service (Recording of the Week), Q, Cosmopolitan, Living Tradition (Scotland) and Sing Out! (USA).