This review was also published in the Hastings Independent 12/5/17

The Copper Family of Rottingdean, Sussex have been noteworthy singers of traditional song for at least a couple of centuries now. Songs being passed down from one generation to the next was nothing particularly unusual at one time. However, as the late Bob Copper point out in his autobiography, their family has been “slower than most to forget them.”

What has also become a tradition over these past fifteen years or so is the Copper Family performing each year in Hastings as part of the Jack In The Green weekend. John Copper tells us that a repertoire of some ninety songs dating back as far as the seventeenth century have been performed and sung and passed down by his family over the generations, with a further ten “more recent” songs added by his father and grandfather in the last century or so. It is from this collection that family draws all their songs that they perform to this day. Traditional staples like Banks of Sweet Primroses and Claudy Banks feature in the set today, just as they have been staples of Copper family sing-alongs for centuries.

The performance is as much a history lesson in rural life, folk-song and family dynamics as it as singing concert, which just goes to make it all the more fascinating, particularly with the insights given by the two older members of the family, John and his sister Jill.

As John Copper stresses, the meticulous way in which these songs have been handed down through the family from one generation to the next provides an authentic glimpse back into seventeenth century life. It is genuinely moving and awe-inspiring to see the family still celebrating those songs today, particularly when they bring some of the youngsters up to join them and we see several generations up on stage together.

No-one in the family is ever pressured to start singing, says Jill Copper, when we chat afterwards. She didn’t start singing in public until she was 27, she tells me, but she is clearly delighted when the children get up to sing alongside her, suggesting that there are likely to be a few more generations of singing Coppers to come.

An intrinsic part of the Jack In The Green festivities in Hastings, if you have not seen a Copper Family performance yet and you have any love at all for traditional music and/or local Sussex history, do make sure you get yourself along for their performance next year.

http://www.thecopperfamily.com/