Roxy Music were an English rock band formed in 1970 by Bryan Ferry (lead vocals/keyboards/principal songwriter) and Graham Simpson (bass). By the time the band recorded their first album in early 1972, Ferry and Simpson were joined by Andy Mackay (saxophone/oboe), Phil Manzanera (guitar), Paul Thompson (drums) and Brian Eno (synthesizer). Simpson departed in mid-1972 – from which time the bassist position in the band went on to be unstable – while Eno was replaced by Eddie Jobson (synthesizer/keyboards/violin) in mid-1973. By 1980, the band was reduced to a core trio of Ferry, Mackay and Manzanera, augmented by various backing musicians.
Beginning with their first album, Roxy Music became a successful act in Europe and Australia during the 1970s. The band pioneered more musically sophisticated elements of glam rock, significantly influencing early English punk music,More Than This: The Story of Roxy Music, Eagle Rock, October 2009. 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.[ "Roxy Music: Biography"]. Stephen Thomas Erlewine. AllMusic. Accessed 3 March 2010.
Roxy Music split in 1976, reformed in 1978, and split again in 1983. Their 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. 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.
Outside the band, Ferry and Eno have had influential solo careers. Ferry has frequently enlisted Roxy Music members as backing musicians during his solo career, and Eno became 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.
History
Formation and early years (1970–1971) In November 1970, Bryan Ferry, who had just lost his job teaching ceramics at a girls' school for holding impromptu record-listening sessions, advertised for a keyboardist to collaborate with him and Graham Simpson, a bassist he knew from the Gas Board (a band he had formed whilst studying at Newcastle University) and with whom he collaborated on his first songs. Andy Mackay replied to Ferry's advertisement. Although primarily proficient on saxophone and oboe, Mackay also owned an EMS VCS 3 synthesizer.
Mackay had 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) 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". After learning of an American band with the name Roxy, Ferry changed the name to Roxy Music, a play on "rock music".
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.
In 1971, Roxy Music 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". 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 Music advertised in Melody Maker seeking the "Perfect Guitarist". The successful applicant was David O'List, former guitarist with the Nice. 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.
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 Makers "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) 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.Michael Bracewell, Roxy: The band that invented an era (Faber and Faber, 2007, ) pp. 376–377
E.G. Management financed the recording of the tracks for their debut album, Roxy Music, recorded in March–April 1972 and produced by King Crimson lyricist Peter Sinfield. Both the album and its famous cover artwork by photographer Karl Stoecker were apparently completed before the group signed with Island Records. A&R staffer Tim Clark later stated that although he argued strongly that Island should contract them, company boss Chris Blackwell at first seemed unimpressed and Clark assumed he was not interested. A few days later, however, Clark and Enthoven were standing in the hallway of the Island offices examining cover images for the album when Blackwell walked past, glanced at the artwork and said "Looks great! Have we got them signed yet?"Michael Bracewell, Roxy: The band that invented an era (Faber and Faber, 2007, ) pp. 385–386 The band signed with Island Records a few days later. The album was released in June to good reviews and became a major success, reaching No. 10 on the UK Albums Chart in September 1972. Manzanera said in an interview in 2024 that the band received five percent of the profits, to be divided between six musicians.
During the first half of 1972, bassist Graham Simpson became increasingly withdrawn and uncommunicative, which led to his leaving the band almost immediately after the recording of the debut album. From this point on, the bassist position in Roxy Music would be unstable, with Peter Paul, Rik Kenton, John Porter, John Gustafson, Sal Maida, John Wetton and Rick Wills all passing in and out of the band over the next four years.Michael Bracewell, Roxy: The band that invented an era (Faber and Faber, 2007, ) p. 376
To bring more attention to their studio album, Roxy Music decided to record and release a single. Their debut single was "Virginia Plain", which scored No. 4 on the UK singles chart. The band's eclectic visual image, captured in their debut performance on the BBC's Top of the Pops, became a cornerstone for the glam trend in the UK. The success of the single caused a renewed interest in the album.
Roxy Music's second album, For Your Pleasure, was released in March 1973. It marked the beginning of the band's long, successful collaboration with producer Chris Thomas, who worked on all of the group's classic albums and singles in the 1970s. The album was promoted with the non-album single "Pyjamarama". At the time Ferry was dating French model Amanda Lear; she was photographed with a black jaguar for the front cover of the album, while Ferry appears on the back cover as a dapper chauffeur standing behind a limousine.
Stranded, Country Life, Siren, and solo projects (1973–1977)
Soon after the tour to promote For Your Pleasure ended, Brian Eno left Roxy Music amidst increasing differences with Ferry. He was replaced by 18-year-old multi-instrumentalist Eddie Jobson, formerly of progressive rockers Curved Air, who played keyboards and electric violin. Although some fans lamented the loss of the experimental attitude and camp aesthetic that Eno had brought to the band, the classically trained Jobson was a more accomplished musician.
Rolling Stone referred to the band's next two albums, Stranded (1973) and Country Life (1974), as marking "the zenith of contemporary British art rock". The songs on these albums also cemented Ferry's persona as the epitome of the suave, jaded Euro-sophisticate. Although this persona undoubtedly began as a deliberately ironic device, during the mid-1970s it seemed to merge with Ferry's real life, as the working-class miner's son from the north of England became an international rock star and an icon of male style.
On the first two Roxy Music albums, all songs were written solely by Bryan Ferry. Beginning with Stranded, Mackay and Manzanera began to co-write some material. Gradually, their songwriting and musicianship became more integrated into the band's sound, although Ferry remained the dominant songwriter; throughout their career, all but one of Roxy Music's singles were written either wholly or jointly by Ferry (Manzanera, Mackay and Thompson did individually write a few of the band's B-sides). Stranded was released in November 1973, and produced the Top 10 single "Street Life".
The fourth album, Country Life, was released in 1974, and was the first Roxy Music album to enter the US Top 40 of the Billboard 200, albeit at No. 37. Country Life was met with widespread critical acclaim, with Rolling Stone referring to it "as if Ferry ran a cabaret for psychotics, featuring chanteurs in a state of shock". Roxy Music's fifth album Siren (1975) contained their only US Top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, "Love Is the Drug", while Jobson received his only writing credit in Roxy Music on the song "She Sells", a co-write with Ferry. The album cover featured American model Jerry Hall, who became Ferry's girlfriend and eventual fiancée, before leaving him for Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones in 1977.
After the concert tours in support of Siren in 1976, Roxy Music disbanded. Their live album Viva! was released in August 1976. In 1976, Manzanera reunited with Eno on the critically acclaimed one-off 801 Live album.
Final studio albums and hiatus (1978–1983)