Being the son of a coal miner and the 3rd of 7 brothers Tim had a typical Northern upbringing in the town of Ossett, West Yorkshire. His interest in music began at around age 5 when his uncle gave Tim and his brothers a four-foot-high stack of 45’s dating from the late 50’s to early 70’s. It was rather an eclectic mix but the majority were by artistes such as Elvis, Buddy Holly, 
The Beatles, Rolling stones, The Kinks, The Small faces, Manfred Mann & many more besides. Sadly, most of these singles were played to destruction but were engrained on of the brothers minds in the process. By the time Tim was in his early teens he was beginning to absorb other musical genres such as Rockabilly, Rock ‘n’ Roll but most of all Punk & New wave. 
 
The Beatles had now given way somewhat to the Jam, The Clash & the Sex Pistols amongst Others. Finally deciding to have a go at playing some of this stuff he borrowed (permanently as it turned out) his brothers bass guitar and set to work, quickly switching to lead guitar.
Within weeks his first band was formed with his two childhood friends, Nathan Seaton on Bass and Mark Rock (yes, that’s his real name!) on drums.
Performing songs from the Beatles, Kink’s Rolling Stones, The Jam, Toy Dolls, and the Clash, they played a few well attended local gigs and started to develop a following before falling out!
The band re-formed soon after though with a new bass player called Martin Whittaker.
The material also changed with a glut of Status Quo songs, alongside Thin Lizzy, Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden songs. As with all guitar players Tim was obsessed with guitars and spent most of his spare time in a local music shop called Jigsaw Sound Centre. 
Getting to know the staff, he soon he soon took an interest in the playing of the shop’s owner and country picker, Stuart Duffy.

Stuart invited Tim to attend a gig at Gnosall village hall were his Country band, Collier Dixon Line were performing. After hearing Stuarts Custom Telecaster clean and pure through Stu’s Music Man RP100 amp via a Morley Volume pedal and Roland Space Echo, Tim was hooked.

As well as working part-time in Stuart’s shop, Jigsaw Sound Centre Tim was becoming more and more interested in Country Music, Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris, Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard & Ricky Skaggs in particular. Fascinated by the instrumentation used on these recordings Tim began to listen to and learn all he could about Country & Bluegrass music becoming obsessed with the guitar playing of Clarence White, Albert Lee and the Steel Guitar of Buddy Emmons & Lloyd Green.

Within three years Tim had learnt to play Guitar, Banjo, Mandolin, Dobro & Pedal Steel Guitar to a good standard. Former Jigsaw employee and friend Andy Whelan was now playing guitar with the multi award winning Country Rock outfit the Stu Page Band and it was Andy who brought word of Tim’s abilities to the attention of Stu Page. 
Stu was suitably impressed with his abilities as a picker and in May 1988 he asked Tim to join his Band as Pedal Steel Guitarist and Banjo player. in turn Tim was inspired to work on his vocal ability having heard Stu’s formidable vocals. This was kick off to a professional performing and recording career that would take him to just about every part of the UK and on tours to Ireland, Germany, France, Sweden, Denmark and even Israel! 

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During this time, he was to play with some of the UK’s foremost Country Music acts such as Madison County, Les Close, Mel Hague, Tony Goodacre & West Virginia. Whilst with the Mel Hague Tim met, became and remains a lifelong friend of 
Double bass master, Andy Seward (Martin Simpson, Kate Rusby). for a short period of time they even performed as a duo on the UK Country Circuit. 
Tim also performed with several US performers such as Kinky Friedman, Linda Cassidy and support for the likes of Joe Ely, Dan Seals, The Glaser Brothers (Marty Robbins former backing singers) & Billy Joe Spears and more recently Hayseed Dixie. 

Best moments however were being on the same bill as Albert Lee, Bill Keith and the legendary Charlie Louvin. On one memorable occasion with Stu Page (Elton John’s Birthday party believe it or not!) he got to talk banjo with his hero Billy Connolly. Billy however being with out his onstage persona Tim didn’t realise who he was for a good 5 minutes! Tim also worked with the UK Bluegrass & Folk legends Roger Knowles and the late Nick Strutt who’s esteemed company inspired Tim to fine tune his “Scruggs Chops” and re-learn the 5-string banjo. It was Upon reading John Klein's acclaimed book “Woody Guthrie - a Life” another obsession began. He Learnt over 2 dozen of Woody’s songs and in doing so stumbled upon the music of Pete & Mike Seeger. After about a year of trying he learnt the “up-picking”, “Frailing” and after a lot of hard work the Claw-hammer Banjo styles. 

Now a successful jobbing multi-instrumentalist and solo performer in 1993 he was offered the job of banjo player with the infamous hillbilly cabaret act The Muldoon brothers (see You tube). 
This lasted four years and although financially speaking it was a good career move Tim became a little disillusioned with the long johns, bib & brace and phony Hillbilly persona not to mention the un-bearable tensions between band members, and decided to call it a day. 

Immediately following the Muldoon brothers Tim performed as a duo with another local multi-instrumentalist, Pete Woodward (Fiddle/Guitar/Mandolin). Now going out as The Black Mountain Boys, the enjoyed some moderate success on the pub and club circuit.
This was to last a year before Pete left to pursue the more lucrative option of solo performances.
Whilst with The Black Mountain Boys they were offered a St. Patrick’s Day gig at the Gas Club in Huddersfield. Having little or Irish repertoire, Tim purchased a copy of the Dubliner's greatest hits and thus began his Irish Music education in earnest. 
He quickly became an avid fan of the Dubliner's, Saw Doctors, and The Pogue’s and learned 30+ Irish songs in a week!
   
After a short period on not performing, Tim formed another band called The Snapp!
Named after the famous “greatest hits” of The Jam album.
Going back to his first love of Punk and New Wave performing the songs of The Jam, The Specials, The Who, The Clash, Ocean Colour Scene, Madness, Blur, Stone Roses, Buzzcocks, Vapours even Toot’s & The Maytals, and many more besides. 
Gigs soon began to flood in, and some regular local venues were booking the band up to once a month! Concerts were always ultra-high energy affairs and performances are full on. 
Gigs from up to 20 years ago at venues such as Boons Yard in Wakefield, The Little Un’ in South Elmsall, the Hop in Wakefield are still lamented to this day.
The Snapp was to perform alongside Tim’s various “day jobs” and musical ventures for the next 23 years!

For the next 4 years Tim had several career changes doing everything from building to truck Driving, culminating with an 18-month stint re-lining the sewers of Dublin in preparation for the LUAS tram project. This was made more bearable with ready availability of Guinness and the Nightly Music sessions in and around the fair city where upon his interest in banjo was re-kindled in the form of the Irish Tenor which he was inspired to learn after hearing some of the many fine players in Dublin. 
Already an accomplished 5 string banjo player, he acquired a reasonable level of proficiency on Tenor banjo and started to sit in on some sessions and in this time his repertoire of traditional Irish tunes grew dramatically.

It was whilst performing on one such session that Tim met the secretary to the governor of Kentucky, Diana Stevie. After some conversation she was so impressed with his knowledge of the Bluegrass State and it’s music that she recommended him for a “good ambassador” award and Tim and about a month later received his credentials as an Honorary Kentucky Colonel! The Award is endorsed by the then Governor of Kentucky Paul E Patton and the John G Brown, secretary of State for Kentucky.

 In 2000 he was to experience a burglary in which his entire instrument collection was stolen. 
Tim was naturally devastated by the loss of all his instruments but of one in particular, a badly beaten but much-loved Guild D6HG serial # KL000560. 
A bizarre twist of fate came about though in February 2002 When Tim, decided to buy a new five-string Banjo from a local dealer but whilst doing so was shocked to happen upon # KL000560 hung up for sale in the shop.
An agreement was made, and the owner agreed to sell it back to him for the price he had paid. 
The guitar had been missing for almost two years and for some reason found its way back to him. 
It seems it had undergone enchantment in its mysterious exile because within a week of having # KL000560 back in his hands Tim had gone from a hand-full of unfinished tunes in fourteen years to twelve finished songs in a week and there has been at least a dozen more since! 

In 2003 Tim resumed his career as a professional musician. He was concentrating upon his song writing at the time but was tipped off about a cheap Pedal Steel guitar at a shop in the next town. Upon purchasing the 
said guitar he threw himself back into the instrument and quickly Regained his chops. Although he hadn’t played Pedal Steel for 9 years, he soon started to pick both live and session work. He was to play on one session at the Oasis Recording Studio in Kings Lynn, Norfolk that become British Country Music Album of the Year 2005, Gerry Ford’s “One More Time”. Unbeknown to Tim the organisers of the Irish Steel Guitar Festival had gotten wind of his skills as a pedal Steel guitar player and much to his surprise they invited him to perform on their 2005 event At the Europa Hotel, Drogheda, Ireland. 

His performance on Pedal Steel and Dobro went down a Storm indeed he was asked to perform again on the 2006 festival. He is now regarded as one of the top pedal steel guitar players in the UK and is in regular demand as a live and session player at Venues and studios throughout the UK. From there he went on to perform with former all-Ireland Junior fiddle champion, Davy Duffy and his band The Duffy Brothers, around the UK and at their weekly residency at the Regent Palace Hotel, Piccadilly Circus, London. 

From 2003 onwards however Tim decided to concentrate on his own band projects and along side the now very popular and busy Snapp, Tim performed as an Acoustic Duo with his brother Jez and as an Irish band called the Shovels both of which were to become almost as popular as the Snapp.

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Tim had been playing a little Irish music in and around Yorkshire for several years with The Black Mountain Boys and a couple of bog standard (no pun intended) Irish music tunes with the Muldoon Brothers.
The original Shovels line up was Tim on Tenor/5 string banjos/Mandolin/guitar, Jez Howard on vocals/Bass/Guitar and Martin Whitaker on Vocals/Guitar/ Tin whistle/Bass.
They were later to be joined by ace front man and performer Nigel Bourke.
 

Much more to follow...

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