Ed Bicknell

Ed Bicknell was on the Hull University entertainments committee, arranging bands for the students, when he first got a taste for the music industry. Moving to London, he worked for agent John Sherry as a booker and soon joined the industry's hopeful pre-millionaires centred on the Speakeasy Club.

When Sherry was asked to handle a new, unknown outfit, Dire Straits, Ed got the job and quickly struck up a special friendship with the band. That relationship extended to 23 years, during which Bicknell expertly steered the Straits to enduring international success, which was to continue until Dire Straits finally broke up in 1995.

Bicknell is now boss of the London office of William Morris Agency. In recent years, he has often appeared on radio and television to discuss music industry issues and to discuss his beachfront home in Barbados.

He was in The Notting Hillbillies formed 1990, playing drums with Mark Knopfler and Guy Fletcher. They recorded one album, "Missing...Presumed Having a Good Time". He started life as a musician playing drums in a Tadcaster band called 'Odin's Veld'.