The Servants' Ball - The Servants' Ball (2019)

Whilst reading a book about the life of Scan Tester, the Sussex concertina player, in the years between the Great Wars, Ben Nicholls found the set list from a village hall dance band, a band who would play any party or ball which would have them if the fee was right.

The set list contained a strange collection of music, some folk music, some music hall, and fashionable dance tunes of the day, light classical and even ragtime which was spreading across the country like wildfire during those years. Much of this music has fallen between the cracks in the years since. Many of these lost tunes now half remembered as a dusty nursery rhyme melody or something a long gone grandparent might have whistled.

But within this forgotten music lies a cultural scrapbook of British history, ancient English dance tunes, polkas and quadrilles from Europe, African American banjo music, Victorian music hall, Italian opera, step dance tunes, even the influence of the then popular passion for Egyptology.... a true melting pot.

Dancer-musician and expert in Sussex/Kent step dancing, Ewan Wardrop features on the album with the Blakey's hammered into the soles of his shoes percussively tapping a storm through many of the dance tunes alongside music performed by some of Britain's leading traditional musicians.

Ewan Wardrop Ex Principal dancer with Mathew Bourne's New Adventures, choreographer for Two Noble Kinsman with Eliza Carthy at The Globe, performer with RSC, Royal National Theatre, Royal Opera House, Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, founder of The Bo Diddlers Morris Side.

Rob Harbron - Concertina- Leveret, Full English, Jon Boden Remnant Kings.

Ben Paley Fiddle Tom Paley, Bonnie Dobson, Damon Albarn, Long Hill Ramblers

Ben Nicholls Upright Bass Seth Lakeman, Full English, Kings of The South Seas, Nadine Shah

Evan Jenkins Percussion Neil Cowley Trio, Ben Watt

Julian Hinton Piano Trevor Horn, Seal