Samuel Smiles (band)

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Samuel Smiles (also sometimes known as "Tim Bowness/Samuel Smiles", to whom all of their albums were attributed) were an intermittently active English ambient-folk band. Their best known line-up featured singer Tim Bowness (of the band No-Man). Other band members during the band's sporadic lifetime were Charles Fernyhough (guitar), Marianne De Chastelaine (cello, ex-Heather Nova/The Wise Wound) and Myke Clifford (saxophone, flute and percussion).

The band was originally formed in Cambridge in 1989 by textural guitarist Michael Bearpark and pianist Peter Chilvers, and were named after the Scottish writer, social reformer and self-help advocate. The band underwent a number of changes in direction (including folk and country) before joining with Bowness (initially under the new name of Strapless). The band rapport was so instant that they performed their first live date on the day of their first rehearsal, and went into Amazon Studios (now Parr Street Studios) in Liverpool to record a live album barely three weeks later. These early sessions were eventually released on the Burning Shed label as Live Archive One.

The band continued sporadically to record and perform over the next decade, culminating in the 1999 studio album World of Bright Futures (featuring guest appearances by Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson and Colin Edwin plus Warringtonian guitarist Tony Harn). A live album, The Way We Used To Live, followed the next year (and was later reissued in an expanded version on Burning Shed as Live Archive Two).

Prone to regular internal tensions, the band ground to a halt in the early 2000s, although all of the members retained their personal and professional friendships. Some of Samuel Smiles's style was carried on into the duo project Tim Bowness/Peter Chilvers. Both Bearpark and Chilvers continued to collaborate with Tim Bowness outside of Samuel Smiles, in projects such as Darkroom, Henry Fool and the Tim Bowness live band of the mid-2000s (as well as performing guest spots with No-Man).

In 2008, Bearpark reunited with Charles Fernyhough in the rock band Aimless Mules; and Marianne De Chastelaine was reunited with Tim Bowness when she added cello to the No-Man album Schoolyard Ghosts.