As the mid-1990s approached, Jimmy Nail was established as one of the biggest names in UK entertainment.

The Benton-born star had shot to overnight fame a decade earlier with his brilliantly realistic portrayal of Oz, the loutish but amiable bricklayer in the ITV comedy drama series Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. The turn of the new decade saw him create, write and star in Spender, a smash-hit BBC series about a maverick Geordie police detective.

There had been film work (he’d later work alongside Madonna in the 1996 movie musical, Evita), and he’d even managed to knock out a couple of singles that hit the upper reaches of the UK charts.

In November 1994, BBC1 began broadcasting Jimmy’s latest offering, Crocodile Shoes – a seven-part drama series following the exploits of a Geordie factory worker-turned-country singer. The places and people of Tyneside would provide an authentic backdrop to much of the action, while the actor himself would write and perform the original songs that featured in the series.

Not that the music world was anything new to Nail. As a teenager, Jimmy Bradford (his real name) had been in the audience when American rock guitar sensation Jimi Hendrix appeared at Newcastle’s legendary Club a’Gogo in 1967. It was an awakening for the youngster.

While sporting a dress and hobnail boots, he would front his own band, the King Crabs who gained a sizable following around the pubs of Newcastle. “It was quite a rarity to see a guy in an R&B band in a frock,” he joked later.

And following his initial breakout success in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, he reached number three in the UK charts in 1985 with a cover of Rose Royce’s Love Don’t Live Here Any More, while in 1992 he hit the top spot with Ain’t No Doubt, a song he co-wrote.

Crocodile Shoes would be made by Big Boy Productions, Jimmy’s own company, which had also been responsible for Spender. Nail would play the starring role, as well as writing, directing and co-producing the whole thing.

In the series, Nail plays Jed Shepperd, a hard-up labourer working in a Newcastle engineering factory who writes country songs in his spare time. When the factory closes (the Chronicle mocked up a special front page announcing the news for use in the show) Jed turns to music. He is spotted by a record company executive and ends up on an adventure which finally takes him to the home of country music, Nashville, Tennessee.

Scenes for the new £2 million series were shot on location on Tyneside during the summer of 1994. Parts of the action were captured in the Newcastle east end suburb of Walker. The interiors of two of the now-teetotal Nail’s former favourite pubs – the Ship in Benton and the Millstone in Gosforth – were recreated in two rooms at the Wincombelee Hotel on Mitchell Street. A local housing estate was used as the location for Jed’s home. Other scenes would be filmed very much further afield, in Nashville and New York.

On Thursday, November 10, 1994, the first hour-long episode of Crocodile Shoes was broadcast on BBC1 at 9.30pm, in between the News and Question Time. The series would also star James Wilby, and local actors Sammy Johnson, Melanie Hill and Mike Elliott.

Reviews were positive for a show which the Evening Chronicle dubbed “the jewel in the crown of the BBC’s autumn schedule”. The series would go on to attract weekly audiences of eight million. Indeed there would be a follow-up series, Crocodile Shoes II, in 1996, while in conjunction with both series, the star also released eponymous albums and a string of singles which became major hits.

During a highly productive period for Jimmy Nail, he had struck gold once again.