INFORMATION ABOUT JIGABIT BAND MEMBERS WITH PHOTOGRAPHS

Please note: if your event is not in the East Midlands area, CLICK HERE to visit Fiona's agency website. She will be able to offer excellent bands in most areas of the country!




ABOUT FI

ABOUT BOB

ABOUT AL

ABOUT JIM

ABOUT SIMON





Jigabit Ceilidh Band Fi with accordion When I first picked up a piano accordion in 1976, aged 16, it was love at first squeeze for me! I knew immediately that it was an instrument I was going to love playing. Several other instruments I’d played as a child took a back-seat to make way for the ol’ squeeze-box and I’m still squeezing my portable expanding chest and loving it.

Jigabit Ceilidh Band Fi with accordion As a rather shy withdrawn youngster, it was a joy to be able to speak through the music. Playing the accordion really did open up a whole new world for me. I was taken to the heart of Quorn Folk Dance club by all the dancers who supported and encouraged my playing and helped me to learn the essentials of playing for dancing. It wasn’t long before I got together with several other musicians and we started playing for Barn Dances and Ceilidhs in the Leicestershire area.

I'm not an academic sort, but I managed to bumble my way through a 3-year BA degree in art and music, having thoroughly enjoyed my year on a foundation course in Art at Loughborough Art College. At the time I was studying music, the accordion wasn’t yet accepted as a “proper” instrument so I was forced to appear to be a serious student of classical music, studying flute and piano’, whilst I was actually a closet semi-pro accordion player, doing gigs to supplement my student grant.

Jigabit Ceilidh Band Fi with accordion Jigabit Ceilidh Band Fi with accordion After completing my Degree, I worked and played for a small local travelling theatre company for a year, and then gradually started to build up my own music business, getting bookings for Ceilidhs and Barn Dances as well as solo musical engagements. When I went full-time professional in the early 1990s, my gig schedule doubled, the Ceilidh and Barn Dance Band Agency was born, and I was able to put to good use many years experience of gigging nationwide and abroad alongside many excellent musicians and callers, securing bookings for my own band as well as giving bookings to other UK ceilidh and barn dance bands and callers.

Through the 1980s, in line-ups Dargason and Two's Company, I played for the nationwide circuit of Folk Dance Clubs and made numerous UK Folk Festival appearances, including Festivals at Sidmouth, Whitby, Lichfield, Chippenham, Eastbourne and Broadstairs. With Two’s Company, I recorded three folk dance albums in the late 1980s. Other line-ups I played in were WYSIWYG, Big Bad Contra and Desperate Measures – renamed JIGABIT some years ago.

Jigabit Ceildidh Band Bob Caller "Not so much a caller as an excellent entertainer." Who said this?! Well, he did actually - but it's not too far from the truth. Born more years ago than he cares to remember, Bob has been performing for the last 40 years and therefore has the experience to give what his public want - a cracking good night! Playing in skiffle bands in the late 50s, rock bands in the 60s, and folk line-ups in the 70s, and during the last twenty-odd years being very involved with Ceilidh and Barn Dance bands as both musician and Caller, Bob's experience is both long and wide.

Jigabit Ceildidh Band Bob Singer Experience a night with Mr Ballard, and you'll have a night to remember! His dance repertoire is aimed primarily at the sort of person who thinks they have two left feet and remembers that the last time they did this sort of thing, they were wearing short trousers. As well as calling for Ceilidhs and Barn Dances, Bob regularly plays and sings in a number of midlands Folk Clubs. The following links will take you to Youtube clips of Bob:

Answer To The Man (Bob Ballard)

The Ballad of Easy Rider (Roger McGuinn)

The Galaxy Song (Eric Idle)

Click here to visit Bob's website! Jigabit Ceildidh Band Bob Singer

Jigabit Ceildidh Band Al on Sandberg bass Al Harris first picked up a guitar in the late 1960s and despite friends’ pleas, he absolutely refused to put it down. He began performing at Worksop Folk Club, a centre of tolerance, and formed the group Widdershins, featuring Clive Heenan, 6 foot 8 inches tall and with a voice to match. Jigabit Ceildidh Band Al

This was followed by Six Hands in Tempo, with Steve Bailey and Dave Proctor, playing songs from the 30s and 40s, together with such immortal creations as the Western Medley and Songs from Science Fiction TV Programmes. Amazingly, with a repertoire like that, Six Hands played at Folk Clubs and Festivals all over the UK and in Europe and Canada, appeared on radio and TV, and made three albums. They also played at some spectacularly unsuitable venues, the true stories of which will be told in the fullness of time…

Jigabit Ceildidh Band Al on Fender bass At the same time, Al was learning bass, having joined the Ken Eatch Jazzmen in Nottingham when their bass player moved on, selling his bass to Al as he left. Al also took up double bass and recorded albums with Tufty Swift, the Excelsior Band (with John Tams), Judy Dunlop and Umps and Dumps, with John Kirkpatrick, Sue Harris, Tufty Swift and Derek Pearce. He played with Umps and Dumps for some years, then occasionally with the John Kirkpatrick Bumper Ceilidh Band (or whatever it was called on the night!) and also with Five Go Off and Dance Cupola for ceilidhs around the East Midlands.

Jigabit Ceildidh Band Al Since 2000, he has played bass and added harmonies in Jigabit, playing for weddings, parties and anywhere people want to have a dance!

Al has depped with anyone who has ‘phoned needing a bass player, banjo player or guitarist in both ceilidh and traditional jazz bands, especially with The Footwarmers, which is the resident band on Sundays at the Bell Inn, Nottingham Market Square.

Jim Walker with Jigabit Jim Walker with Jigabit Jim took up piano lessons from Linda McCartney's piano teacher Eva Warren in the early 70's but then picked up a violin and realised that was the main instrument for him. After many years of study and orchestral playing, he jumped on stage at the Open Mic session at the Hat and Feather pub in Bath, played some Waterboys and Levellers numbers and liked it…..

Fast forward to numerous tours of Germany, Holland and Scotland with Nottingham anarcho-acoustic band Wholesome Fish in the 90s, then years of Gamelan playing, including 2 tours of Malaysia in the last 5 years, many years of Ceilidh service with 5 Go Off and session-playing for music libraries, regular jazz and Balkan sets at Glastonbury festival's Rocket Lounge - not to mention stints with African Kora maestro Surahata Susso and Persian group Arian.

So Jim finally feels like a fully rounded fiddler. He is now equally as happy performing with Jigabit as he is helping his violin pupils through tricky grade 8 Bach, Bartok and Beethoven pieces.



Jim Walker with Jigabit Jim Walker with Jigabit

Jigabit Ceildidh Band Simon with full kit Jigabit Ceildidh Band Simon playing at a party Simon started drumming for the school orchestra in 1973. (aged 14). He joined Shirebrook brass band in 1974 and at the same time formed a group at school and started to play the club circuit. The band was called "Second Coming" not what you think... A religious combo?.... no... but named after an Alice Cooper track from, Simon thinks, his "Dead Babies" album.

Simon was asked by a local Ceilidh band called "Some Like it Hot" to help them with a few gigs. As a result of these connections, he was asked by Judy Dunlop, a local folk Singer to do some recording on her album "Tea for Two" with Al Harris. Out of this came work with the band "Five Go Off" in Nottingham, again with Al Harris. Was there no escape?

From 2005, Simon has gigged with Jigabit when a drummer is needed and is always a great addition to the band! He copes effortlessly with all the styles needed, ceilidh tunes to rock covers

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