Dafydd Iwan

Dafydd Iwan (born Dafydd Iwan Jones in Brynaman in Carmarthenshire, Wales on 24 August 1943), is a Welsh folk singer and politician. He spent most of his youth in Bala in Merionethshire before attending the University of Wales, Cardiff where he studied architecture. He rose to fame as a singer-songwriter, writing and playing folk music in the Welsh language. Iwan's earliest material was Welsh translations of songs by American folk/protest singers such as Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan until he began to write his first ballads. The most prominent of these were political, including the satirical song, "Carlo" ("Charlie"). This was written for the investiture of the Prince of Wales in 1969. Iwan has also written love ballads and variations on traditional Welsh folk tunes. By the late 1960s he was receiving television coverage both for his music and for his political activities. He was imprisoned in 1970 for refusal to pay fines for defacing English language road signs as part...