Happy Anniversary: The Notting Hillbillies, Missing…Presumed Having a Good Time

In 1989, with the Travelling Wilburys having recently made the idea of super-groups seem cool again and Dire Straits having been formally dissolved, Mark Knopfler decided to fill the musical void in his life by teaming up with Guy Fletcher, Brendan Croker, Steve Phillips, and pedal steel player Paul Franklin to form a new band: the Notting Hillbillies.

Granted, Knopfler’s fellow Hillbillies might not have been household names, but their CVs were far from shabby: Fletcher had worked with Steve Harley and Roxy Music and had been playing with Dire Straits since ’84, Phillips and Franklin had their own street cred, and Croker and his band – the Five O’Clock Shadows – had been recording and releasing albums since the mid-‘80s.

Today marks 24 years since the Notting Hillbillies released their first album, and as they’ve never managed to produce a follow-up, we’ve chalked their whereabouts up to matching the title of that lone offering: Missing…Presumed Having a Good Time. It’d be nice if they managed to regroup one of these days, though, as their album has aged like a fine wine, only getting better with time. If you dismissed it at the time of its release because it didn’t sound enough like Dire Straits for you…well, first of all, you’re right: if you take the single, “Your Own Sweet Way,” out of the equation, it barely sounds like Dire Straits at all. Knopfler was very much just another member of the band, just joining in with the other guys and playing a bunch of a covers and a handful of originals. It’s a little bit rock, a little bit country, and a little bit blues, but the combination of the three sounds makes for a sometimes jaunty, sometimes mellow listen that’s well worth a reevaluation.