He was born in Cheshire, but first relocated to London when, at the age of 17 he secured a publishing deal with Southern music, and recorded his first demos produced by Dave Cousins of Strawbs, and with arrangements by Robert Kirby, famed for his work with Nick Drake.
He has produced and written material for a long line of British acts, including Fairport Convention (whose latter-day anthem The Wood and the Wire he composed with Chris Leslie), Lindisfarne, Paul Young of Mike + The Mechanics and Sandi Thom.
Stonier also joined Gilmore on a project commissioned by Island Records to create completed songs from unfinished manuscripts left by the late singer-songwriter, Sandy Denny.
The resulting album Don't Stop Singing yielded the song "London", co-written by Stonier, which was adopted by BBC TV for usage during their coverage of the 2012 Summer Olympics.
On 2015's Ghosts And Graffiti collection, Stonier worked with artists including Billy Bragg, The Waterboys and Joan Baez on new versions of Thea Gilmore songs.
Stonier has in recent years also produced debut albums for a number of artists, and secured the first national airplay for a diverse range of acts including Yorkshire based band Katy Lied (2008), Cambridge born singer/songwriter Tracey Browne (2013) and award-winning young UK folk singer Kelly Oliver (2014).
In 2014, Stonier released his fifth solo album Built For Storms, which included the track "I Hope I Always", which received extensive BBC Radio 2 airplay and led to performing a live session on Clare Balding's Good Morning Sunday show in September 2014.
In early 2016, Stonier collaborated with Robert Plant, Gretchen Peters, Rosanne Cash and Mary Gauthier on a track to commemorate the 70th birthday of the TV and radio presenter Bob Harris.