After the mega-platinum success of
Dire Straits' 1984
Brothers in Arms LP, the group's frontman, guitarist extraordinaire
Mark Knopfler, opted to temporarily shift gears by forming
the Notting Hillbillies, a one-off country side project. Among the band's first recruits was
Steve Phillips, a fellow guitar player whom
Knopfler had first met in Yorkshire in 1968 when both men interviewed a local country and blues musician (also named, curiously enough,
Steve Phillips). Soon, the two aspiring journalists formed the two-man Duolian String Pickers and continued performing together until
Knopfler entered college in 1970; after graduating three years later, he moved to London to start
Dire Straits.
Phillips, in the meantime, formed a rockabilly outfit,
the Steve Phillips Juke Band. In 1976, he met
Brendan Croker, a onetime member of the Juke Band, and the pair began performing as Nev and Norris. By 1980,
Phillips had left the music scene to focus on an art career, leaving
Croker to form Five O'Clock Shadow. In 1986,
Knopfler came calling, and in May of that year
the Notting Hillbillies played their first gig at a tiny Leeds club with a lineup featuring
Knopfler,
Phillips, and
Croker as well as drummer
Ed Bicknell (moonlighting from his day job as
Dire Straits' manager), guitarist
Guy Fletcher, pedal steel guitarist
Paul Franklin, and
Croker's fellow Five O'Clock Shadow
Marcus Cliffe on bass. A tour followed, although the group's lone album,
Missing...Presumed Having a Good Time, didn't appear until 1990, at which point the members of
the Notting Hillbillies had already returned to their main projects. ~ Jason Ankeny