Milton Hide

Great supporters to the club, they have played all over the place, its about time we gave them the stage.

MILTON HIDE

Milton Hide had a flying start to their first musical year - opening for R2 Folk Awards Winner, Jim Moray,(at Mrs Y's) supporting the legendary Martin Carthy and the iconic singer-songwriter Steve Tilston.(Also at Mrs Y's) They wrote and recorded a charity Christmas single, Christmas Lite. Now they have honed their stage craft, written new material, created new arrangements and have just released their first official EP, Little Fish.

HOW THEY MET

Jim Tipler and Josie Tipler (née Church) met at the age of 17 at art college in Hastings where they both studied graphic design. To raise extra cash they would go busking in Eastbourne town centre - often competing with the salvation army and pan pipes - Jim on piano accordion and Josie on clarinet.

MUSICAL BACKGROUND

Josie had wanted to learn the harp at school but was persuaded by her parents that the clarinet would be her instrument as it would straighten her ‘wonky’ teeth. Jim comes from southeast London stock where there was always a piano in the front room and family get togethers would feature people getting up to ‘do a turn’. They married in 1988.

Jim has always been involved with bands - usually folk/roots/blues in nature - and with his accordion- playing brother, Bob, formed the popular ‘Cajun Dawgs’ - a swampy, rockin’ Louisiana-style outfit. Jim went on to form The Pistol Shrimps - a union of The Cajun Dawgs and fellow cajun-style band, Rough Chowder. After both acts had run their course and disbanded in 2016, Jim persuaded Josie to pick up the clarinet once again and come out to play - easier now that their three sons had grown up and left home.

Taking the name of a local patch of woodland and scrub, from the very start Milton Hide decided they were going to write and perform original material and set out playing floor spots at folk clubs and open mics. Jim reworked some of the material he had written for previous bands to make it suitable for an acoustic duo and Josie started to write highly idiosyncratic and witty lyrics to which Jim added the music.