A divergent forking of paths took place in the late 1970s UK countercultural movement. Fomented by the period's class conflict, poverty and social unrest, as though reacting to the changing cultural and social landscape, a cross-pollination of sounds was the norm in this setting with genres being born in rapid succession. These two paths diverging at their point of origin, which was the British and European glam rock movement of the mid-to-late 1970s. The first of the branches from this forking path led to punk rock's music of rejection and radical politics, and then post-punk, and gothic rock a few short years later. The other, a more colorful and theatrical affair, focused on fashion, gender, aesthetics, and an embracing of romantic themes, which led to new romantic pop, and the new wave which followed. There is no other band morer at the locus of this intersection, or significantly responsible for its course than Roxy Music. Their inception began like many of the artists of this generation, as students having recently left art school and begun various unsatisfying entries into the working world. Bryan Ferry knew bassist Graham Simpson from his Newcastle University days with whom he collaborated on his first songs. The two musicians took out an advertisement, seeking a keyboardist to join them, it was Andrew Mackay replied, yet he was more proficient at the saxophone and oboe. What Mackay brought to the band was not only his rather uncommon EMS VCS 3 synthesizer, but his friendship with Brian Eno from their time at the university, and their shared interest in the avant-garde and early electronic music. While not as traditionally adept with acoustic and electric instruments, Eno owned a Revox reel-to-reel tape machine and had unorthodox ideas about their inclusion in the lineup of a modern band. It was around this time bridging the years 1970 to 1971, that Bryan Ferry auditioned as vocalist for the then-legendary prog rock band, King Crimson. While Robert Fripp found Ferry's approach unsuitable for King Crimson's landscape of instrumental explorations, he and Peter Sinfield noted the talent and inventiveness of the fledgling Roxy Music. Which led to them directing the band to the attention of E.G. Records, and their first recording contract.
While working on their demo for the label, Roxy Music picked up both guitarist Phil Manzanera, and drummer Paul Thompson. With their addition, the lineup was complete, and the band's first studio album was assembled as the 1972 self-titled "Roxy Music". In the interim between the demo and completion of the album, the band's fortunes were amplified by attention in the pages of Melody Maker, thanks largely to the enthusiasm of Richard Williams, and the support of broadcaster and cultural icon, John Peel. A BBC session followed shortly thereafter, before the release of the first album, generating early attention to the newest sound to emerge from the then-developing glam rock culture. Over the course of their first two releases, Roxy Music would not only solidify what the genre entailed, but lay the groundwork for the aesthetics and fashion of glam, its performance style and theatrics, and the planting of the seeds of new romantic and the very first instances of what would become new wave pop. It was 1973's "For Your Pleasure", that would be the final album before Brian Eno began his solo career, and the beginning of their decade long ascendancy into popular culture history, until their disbanding with 1982's lushly romantic concept album, "Avalon". Such is the stuff that cultural legends are made of, as The Economist maps the enduring influence of what they are calling the best British art-rock band since The Beatles, "How Roxy Music Helped Define Generations of Pop". In the pages of The Guardian, they assess "Roxy Music: The Band that Broke the Sound Barrier" and on the eve of their 40th anniversary, the singer himself, "Bryan Ferry on How Roxy Music Invented Art-Pop: 'We Were Game for Anything'". So it is overdue that just this year that “Roxy Music would Reunite for Induction Ceremony Performance”, into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, with rumors of their reforming in response. In the interim between their disbanding and this year's reunion, Bryan Ferry's rich solo career is the very map of the transformation of glam, to new romantic, to new wave. Spanning his initial decade of solo recordings, the albums "These Foolish Things", "Another Time, Another Place", "Boys and Girls", and "Bête Noire", enlisted musicians that have played with either Roxy Music, or Ferry's own band throughout the years, including Chris Spedding, Neil Jason and Fonzi Thornton. It is with this arrangement that Ferry will be touring this fall, with a date at Seattle's The Moore Theatre. In which the band will be presenting "Avalon" in its entirety, alongside selections from his solo work, and entries from the Roxy Music songbook, "Bryan Ferry Announces 2019 World Tour Celebrating Roxy Music's Legacy".
