In mid-1972 the band grew out of a line-up of ex-members of blues/jazz/rock band Delivery, Pip Pyle, Phil Miller, and Phil's brother Steve Miller. Replacing Roy Babbington on bass was Richard Sinclair. This line-up moved away from the blues idiom of the early Delivery towards pieces based on riffs in odd time signatures and protracted melodies associated with the Canterbury style. The band played a few live shows between July and September that year, and gained their first record contract with Virgin Records with the 'Sinclair cousins'...as Steve Miller was replaced by Dave Sinclair, the band soon changed their name to Hatfield and the North. Delivery reunited for a BBC session in November 1972 with Steve Miller, Phil Miller, Lol Coxhill, Roy Babbington, Pip Pyle, and Richard Sinclair on vocals. Dave Sinclair left in January 1973, shortly after the band's appearance on the French TV programme Rockenstock, and was replaced by Dave Stewart before the band's first recordings were made. The band recorded two albums, Hatfield and the North and The Rotters' Club. Backing vocals on the two albums were sung by The Northettes: Amanda Parsons, Barbara Gaskin and Ann Rosenthal. On the autumn 1974 "Crisis Tour", which Hatfield co-headlined with Kevin Coyne, the opening act was a duo of Steve Miller and Lol Coxhill and Coxhill usually guested with Hatfield on the jamming sections of "Mumps". After disbanding, Dave Stewart formed National Health with Alan Gowen from Gilgamesh; Phil Miller was a member throughout the band's existence, and Pyle joined in 1977. Hatfield and the North and Gilgamesh had played a couple of shows together in late 1973, including a joint "double quartet" set, in some ways the prototype for National Health. Miller, Stewart, Pyle and Sinclair also worked together in various combinations on other projects. The name of the band was inspired by the road signage on the main A1 road heading north from London, where the a succession of signs referred to the first major town, and the overall direction, as 'A1 Hatfield & the North'. This style of sign from the 1970s has now been replaced by a slightly different variant, as shown in the current picture to the right.
Reunions and archival releases
In March 1990, the group reformed to record a TV show with Phil Miller, Richard Sinclair and Pip Pyle joined by Sophia Domancich. In January 2005, the band reformed again with Alex Maguire on keyboards and toured between 2005 and 2006. On a small number of European dates in June 2005, Mark Fletcher reinforced the band while Pyle was recuperating from a back operation and only played on part of each gig. Pyle died in August 2006 after travelling back from a Hatfield show in Groningen. Following Pyle's death, Hatfield played two previously booked gigs with Mark Fletcher on drums, including the Canterbury Festival in October 2006. In 2005/2006, the band released two archival collections, ' and ', featuring the classic Miller/Pyle/Sinclair/Stewart line-up, distributed by the UK label Burning Shed. Both releases contained a mixture of BBC radio sessions and live recordings, along with the odd demo, which are still available on CD and support the musicians and family of Pip Pyle. In 2007, Cuneiform Records re-released two albums by Steve Miller and Lol Coxhill with bonus material including 20 minutes of material by the proto-Hatfield and the North line-up of Delivery playing "God Song", "Bossa Nochance/Big Jobs", and "Betty". Jonathan Coe's 2001 novel The Rotters' Club takes its title from the band's second album. The novel also mentions them several times. Saint Etienne also reference the band in the track "Popmaster" on their 2017 albumHome Counties.
