Ben Watt

Ben Watt first appeared in 1981 as a young nineteen-year-old experimental songwriter-singer-guitarist. 1982’s 5-track EP Summer into Winter featured Robert Wyatt. His early work culminated in his sparse atmospheric debut album North Marine Drive (1983, UK Independent Album Chart, No 9).

In 1983 he put solo plans on hold to perform and write full-time with Tracey Thorn in their recently-formed duo Everything But The Girl. The band stayed active until 2000. They delivered twelve UK Top 40 singles and seven UK Top 20 albums. 1995’s global hit Missing reached No. 2 on the US Billboard Top 100.

The duo’s career was dramatically interrupted for a year in 1992 by Watt’s drawn-out hospitalisation and near-death experience with a rare auto-immune disease Churg-Strauss Syndrome (aka EGPA) with which he now still lives - a period documented in his acclaimed 1996 memoir, Patient (New York Times Notable Book of the Year; shortlisted for the Esquire Non-Fiction Award; Sunday Times Book of the Year)

As Everything But The Girl quit on a high at the end of the nineties, Ben moved into record production, DJing and clubland. He launched his own award-winning electronic record label Buzzin' Fly in 2003 and was was nominated for Outstanding Contribution to Dance Music at the DJ Magazine Best of British Awards 2009, and as Best Deep House DJ four years running (2008-2011) at the global DJ Awards held in Ibiza.

In 2013 he put Buzzin' Fly on ice and returned to his earliest roots in folk, jazz and art-rock to record the award-winning solo album, Hendra (2014). He also delivered his second memoir, Romany and Tom - follow-up to 1996's acclaimed Patient - nominated for the prestigious Samuel Johnson Non-Fiction Prize 2014.

Subsequent albums include Fever Dream (2016) and Storm Damage (2020). The Guardian commented: ‘In his early fifties, he is making some of the best music of his career.’