Nottingham group 1975-1986

Line Up:
Dave Proctor: Guitar, Vocals
Steve Bailey: Guitar, Vocals
Alan Harris: Guitar, Vocals

History by Dave Proctor, 2024

Six Hands in Tempo formed during 1975. Dave Proctor had met Alan Harris and Steve Bailey via the local folk scene. Alan and Steve were both Yorkshire lads, just graduated from Nottingham University and already played together a fair bit of folk at university.

They also played with local trad jazz outfit The Ken Eatch Jazzmen – Sunday lunchtimes at The Bell, Nottingham Market Square was a regular gig. Steve also had a folk rock band called Morris Convertible, and Alan was playing with folk band Widdershins.

Dave was looking for a new band after Autumn Design stopped playing. They all shared an interest in jazz flavoured music, and this was a common thread they picked up on, deciding to get together to see what happened.

Initially they put together a few songs, mostly standards from the early American Songbook – Varsity Drag and I Love my Baby were first efforts. They all played acoustic guitar and sang and this line up, just three guitars and voices served them well during their 15 year career.

Where did the name come from? Daves former musical partner Adrian Armstrong joined in to help puzzle it out. One of his previous bands was called BOMB (Band of Mental Breakdown). Adrians dad, suggested, tongue in cheek that we should call ourselves SHIT (Six Hands In Tempo). Punk was emerging in the mid-70s so SHIT seemed like a good joke, although a less punk like band you couldn’t imagine. The name just stuck, probably like the acronym ‘to your shoe’. In reality only the full name was used, but occasionally the initial letters would stand out on posters, allowing a private snigger amongst the band.

They soon put a set of songs and some instrumentals together, all covers of standards, appeared a few times on Nottingham local radio and were able to get out to local folk clubs.

Fourteen gigs were completed in 1976. Steve dug into his old records, cassettes etc and rooted out some more unusual material from 1920’s and 30’s. Examples were Noel Coward’s ‘Any Little Fish’ and the Boswell Sisters ‘Roll On Mississippi Roll On’. These were more interesting although quite obscure. This challenged to band to work harder on arrangements, who played what, and how dance band orchestration could be reduced to three guitars. The results had much more ‘meat’ in them. The band were all decent guitarists and singers but they began to stretch their techniques doing these songs.

In 1977 Steve (or maybe Alan) had the idea they should enter themselves for the annual Melody Maker Folk Rock Contest. Dave’s typically downbeat response was – ‘we are neither folk nor rock, so we’ll get slaughtered’. His arm was twisted however and they entered the local heat held in Sheffield. The environment was intimidating – massive pa and mixing desk. The bands were a mixture of hard and prog rock, with a hint of punk emerging…..much hair and ego were in evidence. They did their ‘oldies’ set, and departed sheepishly, thinking that was that, but heard later in the evening they had WON the heat and were through to the regional finals in Leeds.

They won again, ending up in the Grand Final at the Fairfield Halls Croydon. Compered by ‘Whispering’ Bob Harris, judges were Ray Coleman MM Editor, Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, Maddy Prior of Steeleye Span and Rick Parfitt of Status Quo, this felt like a big step up. What chance did they stand !?

In the event, overall winners were Staa Marx, a punk outfit from Bognor….right for the changing times. However, Six Hands got a joint runners up prize and returned home happy and amazed by their achievement.

A month earlier they had got runners up in the final of the Nottingham Evening Post Search for a Star Competition too. They were definitely a bit ‘odd’ to ever win these competitions, but did pretty well considering.

They worked on their material, putting in unusual covers of more recent songs and some funny instrumental medleys like Great Westerns. More and more humour entered the act which continued to go down well in folk clubs and pretty soon they were gigging at a rate of one a week, peaking at about 90 gigs during 1981, all this along with holding down full time day jobs.

They produced an initial EP ‘Far From Broadway’ and LP albums in 1980 (All in Good Time) and 1983 (Desperate Digits), both recorded at Andy Terry’s Rainbow Sound Studios in Nottingham. These sold well on gigs and got a bit of distribution in shops on the Burlington/Plant Life record labels.

Gigs were mostly in the UK at folk clubs and festivals far and wide. Furthest south – Looe, furthest north Sunderland! They brought the house down at Sidmouth festival with their Great Western Themes medley and got high billing at a lot of other major festivals.

Outside the UK they did a short tour of the Toronto area of Canada, (arranged by a friend of Steves who lived there) and Reek Folk Festival in Holland, which was fun, although the locals didn’t quite know what to make of their Anglo-centric act! They also did some gigs for expats in Brussels and a couple of tours of the Antwerp area.

The BBC local connection led to an audition for BBC Radio 2 in London and they were booked for quite a few things on the back of that – Folk on 2, Round Midnight with Brian Matthew and The Stuart Hall Radio Show (ouch!)

The band also ran some successful Nottingham folk clubs – firstly the Newcastle Arms on North Sherwood Street, and later The Narrowboat on Canal Street.
In 1989 they called it a day as Six Hands after 15 great years, but continued to play together in ‘5 Go Off in a Caravan’ – with Mark Tindle, Denny Plowman and Chris Huckle. (Yes there were SIX of us – another sneaky joke). 5 Go Off were our long time folk club residents but also did lots of local gigs and went down really well at village hall/PTA ‘do’s’.

The connection was finally broken in 1991 when Dave took up fiddle playing, joined Derby band ‘R Cajun and the Zydeco Brothers’ and was unable to continue with 5 Go Off due to other commitments. 5 Go Off continued without Dave, successfully playing a bit more serious material, and also side-lining as a barn dance band.

In 2007, eighteen years after their last gig, Six Hands re-formed to do a gig at Southwell Folk Festival, followed by a few occasional gigs up to 2009.
Steve Bailey sadly died in 2018, but as of 2025 Alan and Dave continue their musical adventures separately in various bands.

Record releases

Page on Discogs.

The 2 x 12″ albums were done on the Burlington and Plant Life record labels – they were early to mid 80’s records. Those companies are now defunct and the rights appear to have ended up with Orchard Enterprises who have put them up on Youtube – here
We don’t get any money from these, that was all made selling the vinyl on gigs. Its not a problem though, these things happen in music industry.

NEWSPAPER CUTTINGS

1976

1977

Much More Coming …..