Next up are the Amazing Catsfield Steamers. After over thirty years, the Hastings-based band are still going strong as purveyors of traditional British music for social dance. On the music player, we’ve featured four tracks from their privately released 1981 album United Friends. At the time of the album, the band had 16 members, including five melodeon players as well as concertina and piano accordion! The tracks we’ve chosen give you some idea of the range of the Steamers’ repertoire and their roots in the worlds of Morris and folk club singarounds and sessions. Will Downes, who has been involved with the band since its inception, talked to Lost Folk Tapes about its origins. 

LFT: So how did it all begin? Your line up and the sheer size of the band suggests to us that  you never set out to be anything other than a bunch of people playing for fun in the back room of your local pub…

WD: Around about 1978, Mad Jacks Morris was formed. The side had both men and women's teams who met and practiced together in the back room of The White Hart pub in the small village of Catsfield in East Sussex. When we went out dancing, the men danced only with men and the women with women. There was great enthusiasm amongst the people involved, which still continues today. The side is largely responsible for the revival and ongoing organisation of the now famous Jack in the Green Festival, which takes place in Hastings every May Day weekend. 
 
After tours of dancing, the side would often gather in the practice room at The White Hart for a very informal ceilidh, where anybody who could get a tune out of something would play, and others might sing. We also started to regularly gather on a Sunday night for a music session in The United Friends, a pub in Ninfield, just up the road from Catsfield. This session became so popular with the locals and visiting musicians that you could hardly get in through the pub door!  The session soon developed into a band that, with great courage, decided to hire the village hall at Ninfield to put on a country dance. There were one or two Jonahs in the band, who said we would never sell any tickets and that we would lose money, but we sold 300 tickets and since then we’ve never looked back. The band was huge in those days, with anybody who wanted to play just coming along. Most gigs had a bar then, and we used to visit the pub running it to fill a five gallon barrel of beer which stood on stage for the refreshment of the players. Those days are gone!

LFT: So how did you come to release an album?
 
WD: I can't remember where this took place, but on one occasion when we were playing for a dance, a chap called Richard Hill turned up with his young family. They absolutely loved the music and the dancing, and he introduced himself to us. He was an accomplished classical trombone player who played with an orchestra, with a contract that allowed his release to play with the Gabrielli Brass Consort whenever they went off around the world to perform. I believe he was also an A&R man for EMI Records. He was soon to be found playing trombone with the Steamers - we could hardly believe it.
 
Richard decided to make the album United Friends, and arranged for a mobile recording studio to be sent from EMI to record the tracks. I remember that we also visited Essex Studios in Soho for more recording and for the mixing - and Ralph McTell was there at the same time. Very exciting. About the same time we recorded a series of tracks for a library album, which I believe are still being used today. Richard Hill did a lot of work at the time promoting the album nationally. We received some pretty good reviews, including one in Southern Rag, the forerunner of fRoots.

LFT: Did the reception to the album lead to you touring or playing at festivals?

WD: We played, and still play, mostly in Sussex and Kent, with a few notable exceptions. We had a long weekend playing for dancing in Wales - hence we can claim to have toured abroad! We did a posh wedding in Leamington Spa. We have played at the Teignmouth and Tenterden Festivals and Hastings Jack in the Green, where we’re due to play for the Friday night dance this year. The costs for playing at more distant venues for a band the size of ours can very quickly spiral out of control, so we’ve never really pushed for these sort of gigs.   
 
LFT: Thirty years down the line, the Steamers are still going strong. What’s your secret?

WD: Whilst it’s now in a much reduced form, the band continues to play today - and nobody has ever left under a cloud. A few years ago we had a 30th birthday celebration, inviting all past and present musicians to take turns on stage at our fabulous local arts centre, The Phoenix. Once again it was sold out. I think one of the things about this band is that we were never really about going out and doing original research into folk music traditions. We really were just a bunch of people who got together in the pub and played whatever tunes anyone brought along. In that way, we’ve always had a lot in common with traditional musicians. And above all, it’s always simply been about having great fun making music together. 

You can find out more about the current activities of the Catsfield Steamers at their website www.catsfieldsteamers.co.uk. The band have recently reissued the United Friends album  in a download version, which is available via their website from Amazon, iTunes and eMusic.