roxy music

Roxy Music recorded the innovative and influential hybridized electronic rock of their primal avante-pop glam entree in little over a week with no record contract.  The sessions at Command Studios in London were financed by EG Management and produced by Peter Sinfield, who had just quit King Crimson.  The sextet featured Bryan Ferry on lead vocals, piano, hohner pianet, and mellotron; Brian Eno on VCS3 synthesizer, tape effects, and backing vocals; Andy Mackay on oboe, saxophone, and backing vocals; Phil Manzanera on electric guitar; Graham Simpson on bass guitar; and Paul Thompson on drums.   

Graham Simpson went to art school in Newcastle with Ferry before they started the band.  He remembers Ferry's creative process: "I heard them as works of art, so I played along with them as works of art. Bryan used to spend hours and hours every evening just playing and composing, and writing the lyrics."

Paul Thompson answered an advertisement to join the band:  
“The ad said ‘wonder drummer wanted for avante rock group’ so I rang the number and a bloke with a posh accent and a slight Geordie twinge answered. It was Bryan Ferry. We met up and we got on really well. I think it probably helped that we were both from the north and we both had similar ideas. I auditioned, got the job and I suppose the rest is history.”

Mackay came next, bringing Eno into the group with him. Manzanera failed his first audition; but accepted an offer to be a roadie.  Later, he became the guitarist when  David O'List quit.  He says: “The reason I got into music was I always envied families with lots of kids and when I was nine or ten it was 'please send me to boarding school'. I just want to be with people and I formed a band at at school and it was the social side I enjoyed as well as the musical conversations with people.  With Roxy it's the songs. It does all come back to music every time, whatever grievance or disagreements you might have about anything, it gets you the minute you start playing some of those songs...You think, 'Actually this has a world and life of its own and its very nice to play. And it's ours'."

Andy Mackay considers: "We certainly didn't invent eclecticism but we did say and prove that rock 'n' roll could accommodate - well, anything really"



Eno remembers: "Rock music was only fifteen years old when Roxy began – for the first time, it had started to reflect on its history. There was the sense of a palette you could play with. We thought: 'Here's a form – we can take it apart and put it back together again.'"

Ferry admits:  "We were young and foolish," says Ferry, grinding his fists together to illustrate the relationship. "But at the same time we worked well together. I just didn't like being portrayed as the glamour-boy singer when I was writing this stuff. Back then I felt threatened, but that's changed."

A few weeks after the sessions, the band was signed to Island Records.  The 'Roxy Music' album and iconic cover, shot by photographer Karl Stoecker and featuring model Kari-Ann Muller, were already finished.  The music was a journey through different styles and sounds with flamboyance and sophistication.  'Roxy Music' went to number ten on the British album chart and went on to inform numerous musical movements that were to follow.  

http://www.roxymusic.co.uk/












"Virginia Plain" went to number six in New Zealand and number four in the UK. It did not appear on the original UK release; but was added to later versions.  







"Re-Make/Re-Model"  






"Ladytron"  

'Roxy Music' 
full album:




All songs written and composed by Bryan Ferry.

Side one
1. "Re-Make/Re-Model"   5:10
2. "Ladytron"   4:21
3. "If There Is Something"   6:33
4. "2 H.B."   4:34
Side two
1. "The Bob (Medley)"   5:48
2. "Chance Meeting"   3:00
3. "Would You Believe?"   3:47
4. "Sea Breezes"   7:00
5. "Bitters End"   2:02