It is estimated that Blowzabella musicians played between 26 and 32 instruments in total, which include bagpipes, hurdy-gurdy, diatonic button accordion, alto sax, and triangle.

Source:[4] Blowzabella was formed in Whitechapel, London in 1978 by original members Bill O'Toole, Jon Swayne, Chris Gunstone,Dave Armitage and Juan Wijngaard.

Blowzabella as a character appeared in Thomas D'Urfy's 1719 work Wit and Mirth or Pills to Purge Melancholy under the title "The Italian Song Call'd Pastorella; made into an English Dialogue", and in his earlier 1619 play The Rise and Fall of Massaniello.

[6] Bill O'Toole and Jon Swayne discovered the tune while researching for bagpipe repertoire in the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library and thought the name, with its alliterative "blow" and "bella" descriptive, perfectly summed up the band's sound.

Gunstone then formed another group, The Trio, with Paul James (bagpipes, woodwind) and Cliff Stapleton (hurdy-gurdy), which played for the grand opening of the New Covent Garden Market in early 1980.

Upon suggestion by Dave Armitage, Gunstone invited his Trio to join Blowzabella in late January 1981, thereby creating a unique wall of sound by performing with two bagpipes and two hurdy-gurdies.

Blowzabella first recording with Bill O'Toole (bagpipe) was a live concert playing for the London French folk dance group L'Escargot 1979.

The band had success playing fairs and festivals in southern England and East Anglia, where their unusual performances and unique style quickly made them popular.

Over the summer Paul caused upheaval in switching record label for the band's album and later sought to take over the group and together with Cliff (who wanted to oust Sam and be the only Hurdy-gurdy player, threatened to leave Blowzabella in late 1982 unless Chris left.

Chris Gunstone, the "guiding spirit" of the band, was voted out in September 1982, becoming manager of Robert Mandel's East European Folk group (EEF) [10] featuring Marta Sebestyen from Hungary.

[11] Cutting, Eaton, Freya, James, Luff, Shepherd, and Swayne played several festivals and performed together at a 25-year reunion concert in Bath in September 2003, with guest appearances by Dave Armitage, Bill O'Toole, and Sam Palmer.

In Colour Bobbityshooty Wall of Sound The B to A of Blowzabella Phinga Phrenzy - Live in Brazil A Richer Dust Vanilla Octomento Dance - Live Strange News Two Score Tilham Happy Times Original Blowzabella In 2009, "Fulmine" from Vanilla was included in Topic Records 70-year anniversary boxed set Three Score and Ten as track 21 on the seventh CD.