Spoonfull were a late 1970’s rock band who shared roots in both the Nottingham and Derby regions. Later connections included Blitz, Dawn Trader and Shywolf.

Line up *1:

Phil Toone: Guitar
Rick Evans: Bass
Mick Cassidy: Vocals
Don Bailey: Drums

Guitarist Phil A. Toone was born in 1959 in Sandiacre, Derbyshire. You will often see Sandiacre referred to as being in Notts, part of the greater Nottingham urban distract, a Notts postcode, even the local football side sometimes plays in the Notts Senior League and there is a fair amount of support for Nottingham Foest FC as well but I’m sure an ardent Derbyshire person will point out that Sandiacre sits within the border and that’s that. However, with that said, in the musical world the diversive nature of local politics is not as important and we are happy to share our heritage in a way that some football fans might not.

Both Phil and drummer Don Bailey had been playing in a fifties style rock and roll group playing the club scene and in 1976 joined with Rick Evans and Mick Cassidy who been in an unsuccessful primitive rock band to form Spoonfull. Moving to the rock scene meant little help from local agents to find gigs but they secured their own shows with a couple of highlights being supporting New Zealand band turned London pub rockers Max Merritt and the Meteors at the “Music Machine” in London and opening for Liverpool hard rock band “Nutz” at the Aquarius in Chesterfield.

Mick Cassidy wrote most of the lyrics and Phil Toone wrote most of the music and two of their early self penned numbers were released on a single in 1977 on Banbury records, part of the PYE records family. Critics at the time classed the single as a cross between Family, Genesis and Free which is a nice accolade to have.

Line up *2:

Phil Toone: Guitar
Mick Kitchener: Guitar
Rick Evans: Bass
Mick Cassidy: Vocals
Don Bailey: Drums

In February 1978 they expanded the band with the addition of guitarist Mick Kitchener who had been the front man and guitar extrovert of Nottingham group “Orphan” from the early seventies. With similar tastes in music their sound was along the lines of Deep Purple, Trapeze and Welsh group Sassafras, with whom they formed a good relationship possibly because of Nottingham man Terry Bennett being the lead singer. In 1978 there was talk of the band going into the studio to record an hours worth of their own material to release on cassette form but whether this surfaced or not I don’t know. The band broke up in 1979 reformed and morphed into Blitz before Phil Toone went on to form Shywolf. Bass player Rick Evans joined Nottingham rockers Dawn Trader as did drummer Don Bailey at some time.

1978