THE ROXY MUSIC STORY |
f you filled a bill with all the
artists whose work bears the fingerprints of Roxy Music, you'd have the
festival to end them all. The show would start with their countless fellow
travellers and courtiers in experimental rock of the early 1970s, take in some
of the prime players in Krautrock, just about all of the protagonists of the
new romantic movement, the gatekeepers of electronica and progressive dance
music, and open out into a millennial rock hall of fame with the likes of
Radiohead, Pulp, Suede, Moby and many more. In 2001, the alchemists are back. Satisfying endless speculation and voracious interest, Roxy Music will begin a British tour in June, in their first live performances together since 1983, based around the classic line-up of vocalist Bryan Ferry, saxophonist Andy Mackay and guitarist Phil Manzanera.
To watch the reconnection of these truly original spirits of British music, reinvestigating the priceless Roxy catalogue after almost two decades, will be fascinating indeed. Since they quit (uniquely, in rock convention, while they were ahead) at the conclusion of a North American tour 18 years ago, the band's three core members have pursued diverse career paths but stayed faithful to the adventurous guile that made Roxy Music such a potent cocktail of fashion, romance, nostalgia and futurism.
From their earliest steps, Roxy left a massive footprint on British popular culture. They were formed in 1971 by Ferry, Mackay and Brian Eno, the axis completed with Manzanera's official arrival early next year, by which time the music press was buzzing. Their self-titled debut album in the summer of '72 - declared by many then and ever since as the best first album ever - cleared the path for a saunter into the UK top five by the ravishingly stylish first single 'Virginia Plain'. Before the year ended, Roxy had completed their opening tours of both the UK and US. For once, fans in the industry and in the real world were unanimous: here was a triumph of style AND substance.
Almost everything that happened chez Roxy during the next decade, and seven more studio albums, has become part of the fabric of rock history, from rule-trashing singles like 'Pyjamarama', 'Street Life' and 'Love Is The Drug' to Bryan's ever-influential wardrobe and those legendary album covers. Three times they topped the album charts during their active lifetime, with 1973's 'Stranded', 1980's 'Flesh and Blood' and their last studio album 'Avalon', and it wasn't long before the compilation album 'Street Life' raced to No.1 in 1986 and stayed there five weeks. The more recent 'mastered reappearance of the entire Roxy catalogue, and the rapturous reviews it engendered, confirmed that the legacy had only appreciated with time. Ferry's 1999 solo album 'As Time Goes By' gained significant recognition with a Grammy 2001 nomination.
For all the imitators and admirers, no one has ever successfully cloned the unique and unknowable combination of elements that comprised Roxy Music. Three decades later take your partners: it's time, again, to - ..do the strand.
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