Nick Barraclough

Nick Barraclough (born 1951 in Cambridge) is a British radio producer, presenter, musician and writer, who is best known for hosting shows related to specialist American music. He presented the long-running Nick Barraclough's New Country show for BBC Radio 2 between 1992 and 2007, and Smooth Country for the Smooth Radio network from 2007 to 2008. Between 2006 and 2013 he made a number of music-related documentaries for BBC Radio 4.

Early career

For a number of years in the 1970s-early 1980s he worked as a musician in groups that included "Baby Whale", worked as one of the backing musicians for bluegrass artist Pete Sayers, and led the folk/country/swing acoustic group "Telephone Bill and the Smooth Operators", later revived in the 2000s. His career in radio began in 1982, with the launch of BBC Radio Cambridgeshire. There he hosted the breakfast show and was later a mid morning presenter.

In 1986, he moved to Manchester to produce programmes and sessions for Radios 1 and 2. While in Manchester he also wrote and produced the first definitive radio documentary series about Country music. The series was called Hit It Boys, and was presented by Ricky Skaggs.

After a year in Manchester, he moved to London, where he produced further documentaries, Radio 2's Gloria Hunniford Show, and Wally Whyton's Country Club.

Nick Barraclough's New Country

With an upsurge of interest in the Country genre in the early 1990s, BBC Radio 2 was keen to put together a new show which would reflect the changes in the music, and its growing popularity. Nick's name was put forward. Consequently, Nick Barraclough's New Country was commissioned in 1992. An initial run of three months was planned, but the show quickly gained an audience, so became a regular feature of Radio 2's weekly schedule. It ran on a weekly basis until April 2007, when Nick left Radio 2 and joined the then newly launched Smooth Radio, where he presented the country music programme on Sunday evenings. However, he left Smooth Radio in June 2008 due to other work commitments. Since then he has produced three major series for the Guardian Media Group; on the music of the Mississippi, New York's Brill Building and the West Coast music scene between 1960 and 2000, as well as several projects for Radio 4 and Radio 2