Roxy Music
Roxy Music are an English rock band formed in 1970 by lead vocalist and principal songwriter Bryan Ferry and bassist Graham Simpson. By the time the band recorded their first album in 1972, Ferry and Simpson were joined by saxophonist and oboist Andy Mackay, guitarist Phil Manzanera, drummer Paul Thompson and synthesizer player Brian Eno. Other members over the years include keyboardist and violinist Eddie Jobson and bassist John Gustafson. The band split in 1976, reformed in 1978 and split again in 1983. In 2001, Ferry, Mackay, Manzanera and Thompson reunited for a concert tour and have toured together intermittently ever since, most recently in 2022 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their first album.[11] Ferry has also frequently enlisted band members as backing musicians during his solo career.
This article is about the English rock band. For their self-titled debut album, see Roxy Music (album).
Roxy Music
County Durham/London, England
- 1970–1976
- 1978–1983
- 2001–2011
- 2022
- The Explorers
- 801
- Brian Eno
- Graham Simpson
- Dexter Lloyd
- Roger Bunn
- David O'List
- Rik Kenton
- John Porter
- Eddie Jobson
- John Gustafson
- Sal Maida
- John Wetton
- Rick Wills
Roxy Music became a successful act in Europe and Australia during the 1970s. This success began with their first album in 1972.[12] The band pioneered more musically sophisticated elements of glam rock while significantly influencing early English punk music,[13] and provided a model for many new wave acts while innovating elements of electronic composition. The group also conveyed their distinctive brand of visual and musical sophistication with their focus on glamorous fashions.[1] Roxy Music's final studio album was Avalon (1982), which was certified Platinum in the United States, where the band had spent their first ten years as a moderately successful cult band.[14]
Outside of the band, Ferry and Eno have had influential solo careers, with Eno also becoming one of the most significant British record producers of the late 20th century. In 2019, Roxy Music were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.[15][16]
History[edit]
Formation and early years (1970–1971)[edit]
In November 1970, Bryan Ferry, who had just lost his job teaching ceramics at a girls' school for holding impromptu record-listening sessions,[17] advertised for a keyboardist to collaborate with him and Graham Simpson, a bassist he knew from his Newcastle art-college band, the Gas Board, and with whom he collaborated on his first songs, answered his ad. At some time during late 1970/early 1971 Ferry auditioned as lead vocalist for King Crimson, who were seeking a replacement for Gordon Haskell. While Robert Fripp and Peter Sinfield decided Ferry's voice was unsuitable for King Crimson's material, they were impressed with his talent and helped the fledgling Roxy Music to obtain a recording contract with E.G. Records.
Andy Mackay replied to Ferry's advertisement, not as a keyboardist but a saxophonist and oboist, though he did have a EMS VCS 3 synthesizer. Mackay had already met Brian Eno during university days, as both were interested in avant-garde and electronic music. Although Eno was a non-musician, he could operate a synthesizer and owned a Revox reel-to-reel tape machine, so Mackay convinced him to join the band as a technical adviser. Before long Eno was an official member of the group. Rounding out the original sextet were guitarist Roger Bunn (who had issued the well-regarded solo studio album Piece of Mind earlier in 1970)[18] and drummer Dexter Lloyd, a classically trained timpanist. The group's name was derived from Ferry and Mackay making a list of old cinemas, and Ferry picking Roxy because it had a "resonance", some "faded glamour", and "didn't really mean anything".[19] After learning of an American band with the name Roxy, Ferry changed the name to Roxy Music.[19]
In 1971, Roxy recorded a demo tape of some early compositions. In the spring of that year, Lloyd left the band, and an advertisement was placed in Melody Maker saying "wonder drummer wanted for an avant rock group".[20] Paul Thompson responded to the advertisement and joined the band in June 1971.
Bunn left the group at the end of the summer of 1971, and in October, Roxy advertised in Melody Maker seeking the "Perfect Guitarist". The successful applicant was David O'List, former guitarist with the Nice.[21] Phil Manzanera—soon to become a group member—was one of about twenty other players who also auditioned. Although he did not initially make the band as a guitarist, the group were impressed enough with Manzanera that he was invited to become Roxy Music's roadie, an offer which he accepted. In December 1971, after a year of writing and rehearsing, Roxy Music began playing live, with their first show at the Friends of the Tate Gallery Christmas show in London.[22]
The band's fortunes were greatly increased by the support of broadcaster John Peel and Melody Maker journalist Richard Williams. Williams became an enthusiastic fan after meeting Ferry and being given a demonstration tape during mid-1971, and wrote the first major article on the band, featured on Melody Maker's "Horizons" page in the edition of 7 August 1971. This line-up of Roxy Music (Ferry/Mackay/Eno/Simpson/Thompson/O'List) recorded a BBC session shortly thereafter.
First two studio albums (1972–1973)[edit]
In early February 1972, guitarist O'List quit the group abruptly after an altercation with Paul Thompson, which took place at their audition for David Enthoven of E.G. Management. When O'List did not show up for the next rehearsal, Manzanera was asked to come along, on the pretext of becoming the band's sound mixer. When he arrived he was invited to play guitar and quickly realised that it was an informal audition. Unbeknownst to the rest of the group, Manzanera had learned their entire repertoire and as a result, he was immediately hired as O'List's permanent replacement, joining on 14 February 1972. Manzanera, the son of an English father and a Colombian mother, had spent a considerable amount of time in South America and Cuba as a child, and although he did not have the same art school background as Ferry, Mackay and Eno, he was perhaps the most proficient member of the band, with an interest in a wide variety of music. Manzanera also knew other well-known musicians, such as Pink Floyd's David Gilmour, who was a friend of his elder brother, and Soft Machine's Robert Wyatt. Two weeks after Manzanera joined the band, Roxy Music signed with E.G. Management.[23]
Style[edit]
The early style and presentation of Roxy Music was influenced by the art school backgrounds of its principal members. Ferry, Mackay and Eno all had studied at prominent UK art colleges during the mid-to-late 1960s, when these institutions were introducing courses that avoided traditional art teaching practice, with its emphasis on painting, and instead focused on more recent developments, most notably pop art, and explored new concepts such as cybernetics. As writer Michael Bracewell notes in his book Roxy: The Band that Invented an Era, Roxy Music was created expressly by Ferry, Mackay and Eno as a means of combining their mutual interests in music, modern art and fashion.
Ferry studied at Newcastle University in the 1960s under renowned pop artist and educator Richard Hamilton, and many of Ferry's university friends, classmates and tutors—e.g. Rita Donagh and Tim Head—became well-known artists in their own right. Eno studied at Winchester School of Art and although his iconoclastic style became apparent early and caused some conflict with the college establishment, it also resulted in him meeting important artists and musicians including Cornelius Cardew and Gavin Bryars. His interest in electronic music also resulted in his first meetings with Andy Mackay, who was studying at Reading University and who had likewise developed a strong interest in avant garde and electronic music.
The three eventually joined forces in London during 1970–71 after meeting through mutual friends and decided to form a rock band.
Roxy Music was initially influenced by other contemporary artists at the time including the Beatles, the Kinks, the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Elton John, the Animals, Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Jimi Hendrix, the Velvet Underground and the Who, as well as American rock and roll acts and genres such as Elvis Presley and Motown. Ferry stated that Roxy Music's unique sound came as a result of the diverse and eclectic musical backgrounds of the band's members; "I had lots of musical influences, Phil Manzanera had this Latin heritage, being born in South America. Saxophone and oboe player Andy Mackay was classically trained. Eno with his deep interest in experimental music. They were specialists in their field. Paul Thompson brought a lot, with his very powerful, earthy drumming."[52][53]
Roxy Music was one of the first rock music groups to create and maintain a carefully crafted look and style, which included their stage presentation, music videos, album and single cover designs, and promotional materials such as posters, handbills, cards and badges. They were assisted in this by a group of friends and associates who helped to sculpt the classic Roxy Music 'look', notably fashion designer Antony Price, hair stylist Keith Mainwaring, photographer Karl Stoecker, the group's "PR consultant" Simon Puxley (a former university friend of Mackay) and Ferry's art school classmate Nicholas De Ville. Well-known critic Lester Bangs went so far as to say that Roxy represented "the triumph of artifice".[54] Ferry later attributed the band's look to his interest in American music and popular culture icons including Marilyn Monroe, Motown and Stax Records artists. He also stated he wanted to create an alternative image to publicity shots of pop and rock groups at the time which would feature artists "in a dreary street, looking rather sullen. Which was the norm."[52]
The band's self-titled debut album, produced by King Crimson's Pete Sinfield, was the first in a series of albums with increasingly sophisticated covers, with art direction by Ferry in collaboration with his friend Nick De Ville. The album artwork imitated the visual style of classic "girlie" and fashion magazines, featuring high-fashion shots of scantily clad models Amanda Lear, Marilyn Cole and Jerry Hall, each of whom had romances with Ferry during the time of their contributions, as well as model Kari-Ann Moller who appears on the cover of the first Roxy studio album but who was not otherwise involved with anyone in the band, and who later married Mick Jagger's brother Chris.[55] The title of the fourth Roxy studio album, Country Life, was intended as a parody of the well-known British rural magazine of the same name, and the visually punning front cover photo featured two models (two German fans, Constanze Karoli—sister of Can's Michael Karoli—and Eveline Grunwald)[56] clad only in semi-transparent lingerie standing against an evergreen hedge. As a result, in many areas of the US the album was sold in an opaque plastic wrapper because retailers refused to display the cover. Later, an alternative cover, featuring just a picture of the forest, was used.
Legacy and influence[edit]
In 2005, Tim de Lisle of The Guardian argued that Roxy Music are the second most influential British band after the Beatles. He wrote, "Somehow, in a landscape dominated by Led Zeppelin at one end and the Osmonds at the other, they managed to reach the Top 10 with a heady mixture of futurism, retro rock'n'roll, camp, funny noises, silly outfits, art techniques, film references and oboe solos. And although their popularity has ebbed and flowed, their influence has been strikingly consistent."[14] In 2019, The Economist also described them as "the best British art-rock band since the Beatles", arguing that "among English rock acts of that time, their spirit of adventure and their impact" was "surpassed only" by David Bowie.[57] Bowie himself cited Roxy Music as one of his favourite British groups and in a 1975 television interview described Bryan Ferry as "spearheading some of the best music to come out of England."[58]
Roxy Music's sound and visual style have been described as a significant influence on later genres and subcultures such as electronic music, punk rock, disco, new wave and new romantic.[59][60][61] Madness are among the artists that have cited Roxy Music as an influence.[62] They paid tribute to Bryan Ferry in the song "4BF" (the title is a reference to the song "2HB", itself a tribute to Humphrey Bogart from the first Roxy Music studio album). Other artists who have cited or been described as influenced by Roxy Music include Nile Rodgers, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Duran Duran, U2, the Smiths, Spandau Ballet, Radiohead, Scissor Sisters, Talking Heads, Imogen Heap, Goldfrapp, Pulp, Sex Pistols, the Human League, Todd Terje and Franz Ferdinand.[59][60][61]
In 1997, bassist John Taylor of Duran Duran produced the tribute album Dream Home Heartaches... Remaking/Remodeling Roxy Music. The compilation features Taylor as well as Dave Gahan (Depeche Mode) and Low Pop Suicide, among others.
Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones named his first band the Strand after the Roxy Music song Do the Strand.[63] Jones has also described Roxy Music's style as a strong influence on the later punk craze of which he would go on to become a part, and cited their first album as one of his all-time favourites.[64][65]
The electronic band Ladytron took their name from the title of a song from Roxy Music's first album.[66]
The British band Bananarama took their name, in part, from the Roxy Music song "Pyjamarama".[67]
In popular culture[edit]
Roxy Music's work has been featured in a number of soundtracks for both film and television. The track "If There Is Something" plays a symbolic role in the 2008 drama/coming-of-age movie Flashbacks of a Fool directed by Baillie Walsh and starring Daniel Craig. In the film, the younger version of Craig's character is also shown dressing up as Bryan Ferry during a flashback scene set in the 1970s.[68] Sofia Coppola's 2003 film Lost in Translation features Bill Murray's character Bob Harris singing an off-key version of "More Than This" in a karaoke club. It was used on a Nissan TV advertisement in 1999. "More Than This" also is danced to by Toni Collette's character in the 2019 mystery film Knives Out and was featured in the Cold War set television show The Americans.[69] The title song "Avalon" of the 1982 studio album of the same name was featured in the 2005 Nick Love film The Business. Guy Ritchie's 2020 black comedy crime film The Gentlemen features "In Every Dream Home a Heartache" during an action sequence.[70]
An antagonist character in the Capcom video game Final Fight named Roxy (a female acrobatic fighter) is named after the band, as are other enemy characters in the game that pay homage to someone or something related to music, like her identical partner Poison.[71]
In early April 2021, an image of a purported 1971 letter addressed to "Mr B. Ferry" circulated widely on social media. The document appeared to be a rejection note, sent to Ferry by one "Hugh C. Smith", an Artists & Repertoire manager at Polydor Records, in which "Smith" patronisingly critiqued a demo tape that the group had submitted to the label. According to a 4 April 2021 item in "Treble" e-zine, the letter was in fact an April Fools' Day prank which apparently originated from the Twitter account of former Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club drummer Chris Frantz. In May 2021, Tony Barrell, a British writer and Roxy Music fan, announced that he was the author of the letter.[72]
Current line-up
Studio albums