Telephone Bill & The Smooth Operators

This is the first time we've carried a pre-festival interview on this site. The reason for the break in tradition is circumstance. One of the founder members of Telephone Bill & The Smooth Operators is Nick Barraclough.

Many of you will know Nick from his Radio 2 show, but he has extensive connections with Cambridge Folk Festival. He has not only played the festival in the past, and returns this year on the Thursday, he comperes at the event as well as features the event through his production company, Smooth Operations(based in Cambridge), that does his and Mike Harding's radio shows.

With so many different angles on the Folk Festival, and because he runs around like the proverbial blue arsed fly during it, we thought you might like a sneak preview of this year.
#NB=Nick Barraclough #NK=Neil King

#NK Firstly, what prompted you to get Telephone Bill & The Smooth Operators back together?

#NB My advancing age. I'm fifty this year. I'd met up with Chris Cox, another founding member, the main songwriter and bass player with the band. He and Ann Baker wrote all the songs. Ann Baker, who became Ann Barraclough and is now Ann Graham. Chris and I were talking about the fact that we'd never really drawn a line under the band. We've heard so much music since, particularly me on my Radio 2 show, that makes me think that people are now doing what we were doing back then.

When Telephone Bill was working, back in the late seventies, we were doing so against a background of punk and pub rock. We didn't fit very well into either category. We were screamingly unfashionable back then, but recently the stuff that we did, would now be considered quite fashionable.

Apart from that we also felt there was unfinished business. We missed the band terribly. I always felt it was the best thing I ever did.

#NK You even named Smooth Operations after it.

#NB Well that's right, yeah. I had a huge affection for that. I felt that we hadn't really lived up to our potential. Also most of the friends that I have now, including my wife and kids, never heard the band. They've heard about it but never saw it.

That was what prompted us to do it, then we had to see if logistically we could get it to work. The four of us, Chris, myself, Ann and Rob Appleton…Rob and I both live around Cambridge, Ann's in London, Chris is in Oxford…It's pretty straightforward us getting together. The problem's Jerry who lives in Australia. It's a bit sad because we contacted him and he was up for it. Then he got an offer of a run for six months with a show and obviously that meant he had to turn us down.

We've got Simon Mayer, a phenomenal mandolin/fiddle player. We used to tour with him back in the seventies. He knew the band back then and Chris has kept in touch with him, so he's going to be the fifth member, which is quite exciting. It means that we might be able to do more than a couple of gigs.

The four of us, without Simon, got together a couple of weeks ago. We decided to just go for it, counted ourselves in and just did the opening number. It was weird…twenty two years…one, two, three, four and into "Up The Lazy River", it was fantastic.

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