The HTFib story - the roots

It goes something like this:

Marck met Ade doing amateur dramatics in Ilminster for IES and subsequently met Maurice (our original bass player), who was already jamming with Ade out at Maurice's shed.

We met en-masse for the first time when Ade invited Marck and Jerry (our old keyboard player) invited Mark to play guitar in a 60's review show for the Broadway Amateur Theatrical Society with a mate of Jerry's on bass. Mark played, Marck worked as MD and the show was a stonker.

The big thing here was that Mark and Marck hit it off like long lost brothers. They co-wrote the first new song, "Ever a time", in January 1997 and suggested that Maurice and Ade might like to form a band with them to play the original material. Dusting off some of the old numbers from years gone by and dashing off new songs at a pretty reasonable rate, the band began rehearsing.

Jerry was asked to join in some time in February and by April, the set was shaping up, a name had been found and the first of the H.T.Fib Catalogue "Rehearsal Takes" tapes came into being.

The set grew to 15 well polished original numbers in varying styles covering reggae, jazz, rock, soul, folk, pop, salsa and funk.

The Fibbers began trying out the numbers at local Jam nights at Barrington and The Eagle Tavern culminating in the first full showing of all 5 of us playing 3 songs from the set at the Eagle on the 11th July 1997 to great appreciation.

We were featured on Orchard FM, the Taunton based local radio station, with James Richards on Sunday 3rd August 1997. We talked about the music, did a couple of live numbers on-air and James played "Long Rider" off our sampler CD.

Having finished a mini tour of the area in early 1998 things quitened down while Jerry disappeared in a flurry of reproductive activity and Maurice left to pursue his dream of being a guitarist (which he already was, really).

Easter 1999 and Gilly Betsworth (the band's early manager) introduced Marck to Ali Groves who was promptly dragged on board. She is a young singer-songwriter with a great voice, a great attitude and some real talent.

Julian Dorse diverted some of time from playing with his own band, "Chard Remains", to spend it with us, working on some new material and playing some gigs.

In the autumn of 1999, Ali went off to University in Chester to study drama and the band went on standby for her return.