The Committee Band first played in January 1985 at the Knees Up Cecil Sharp ceilidhs at Cecil Sharp House in London. The original members (Cathy Cook, Diane Moody, Martin Nail, Mary Panton, Gordon Potts, and the late Dave Roberts) were all members of the committee which organises the Knees-Ups. The original idea was to use the talents of committee members to avoid having to pay for a band. It soon became the practice to invite non-committee members to play and for some years the line-up was somewhat variable. It became a popular fixture at the Knees-Ups, playing with such callers as Eddie Upton, Mick Brooks, and Brenda Godrich, as well as Mary Panton, Gordon Potts, and Dave Roberts from within the committee. The band's first booking outside Cecil Sharp House was for a dance in Hastings in 1988. From 1990 to 1993 the Band played each year for the Drill Hall ceilidhs at the Sidmouth International Festival of Folk Arts, and during this period also settled down to a more fixed line-up (in the process growing to its present size) and adopted Nick Walden as its regular caller. In recent years it has played both at festivals and for many of the regular ceilidh series in southern England. In the last couple of years the band has also released two CDs.
For many years Ian, Hilda, Diane, Gordon and Martin (a sub-committee band?) formed one of the a resident bands at the Islington Folk Club in London.
Anoraks' corner: list of previous bookings to date
Page created by Martin Nail. Last revised 20th June 2006