T. Rex (band)
T. Rex |
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T.Rex (originally known as Tyrannosaurus Rex, also occasionally spelt T Rex or T-Rex), were an English rock band fronted by Marc Bolan. It was founded in 1960s London and found success as a 1970s glam rock group.
Formation
The band was founded by Marc Bolan in August 1967 and performed just once as a four-piece rock band, at Electric Garden in Covent Garden, London, before immediately breaking up in disarray. Bolan retained the services of percussionist Steve "Peregrin Took" and the duo began producing eccentric, pastoral, and folk-tinged ditties steeped in Tolkienian mythology, with spiritual homages to Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran thrown into the mix for good measure.
The combination of Bolan's acoustic guitar and cat-like wail with Steve Took's bongos and assorted percussion, which often included children's instruments such as the Pixiephone, gained them a devoted following on a thriving underground scene that included the Incredible String Band. Disc jockey John Peel befriended the band and ferried them to and from gigs in his Mini. Peel later appeared on record with them, reading stories written by Bolan. Another key collaborator was producer Tony Visconti, who went on to produce the band's albums well into their second phase.
Tyrannosaurus Rex
By 1968, the act had become a modest success on radio and on record, and had released three albums. Whilst Bolan's early material was rock and roll influenced folk and protopunk, he was now writing glowing, dramatic, elegant, and Baroque songs with lush melodies and surreal lyrics filled with Greek and Persian mythology as well as mythical creations of his own, still with rock overtones. The band became regulars on Peel sessions on BBC radio, and had toured Britain's student union halls. The group, however, received bad press from journalists and critics, who were annoyed at the overexposure they were getting on John Peel's radio shows.
By 1969 there was a clear rift between the two halves of Tyrannosaurus Rex. Bolan and his girlfriend June Child (ex-girlfriend of Syd Barrett) were living a quiet life, while Took had fully embraced the anti-commercial/community spirited/drug-taking ethos of the UK Underground scene centered around Ladbroke Grove. Took was also attracted to the most anarchistic elements, such as Mick Farren/Deviants and members of the Pink Fairies Rock 'n' Roll and Drinking Club.
By now Took was writing his own songs and wanted the duo to perform them, but Bolan firmly refused. Took contributed his talents and two songs, including "The Sparrow Is A Sign," to Twink's Think Pink album, which Bolan probably also did not approve of.
Bolan's relationship with Took ended after Unicorn, although they were contractually obliged to go through with a US tour which was doomed before it began. Poorly promoted and planned, the tour saw the acoustic duo senselessly billed alongside loud electric acts. Took commented that the audience often did not even notice they had started their set, and he would sometimes strip to the waist and whip himself in Iggy Pop manner.
As soon as he returned to the United Kingdom, Bolan replaced Took with bongo player Mickey Finn, who would remain with Bolan until 1975. They made A Beard of Stars, the final album under the name Tyrannosaurus Rex. Unlike Took, Finn had no song writing aspirations. Finn was also more eccentric than Took, and famously[citation needed] owned a large powerful motorcycle that impressed Bolan so much that he chose him as Took's replacement.[citation needed]
As well as progressively shorter titles, the albums began to show higher production values, more accessible song writing from Bolan, and experimentation with electric guitars and a true rock sound. The breakthrough was in "King of the Rumbling Spires," (recorded with Steve Took) which used a full rock band. This era also saw the publication of The Warlock of Love, a book of Bolan's poetry; derided by critics, it nevertheless became the best-selling poetry book of its time[citation needed].
T.Rex
The next album, titled simply T.Rex, continued the process of simplification by shortening the name, and completed the move to electric guitars. (Legend has it that Tony Visconti got fed up with writing the name out in full on studio chitties and tapes and began to abbreviate it. When Bolan first noticed he was supposedly furious, but later claimed the idea was his.) The sound was altogether "poppier," and the first single, "Ride A White Swan", reached number two in the UK chart in late 1970. In early 1971, the T. Rex album reached the top twenty of the UK album charts on the strength of the single (which was not actually included on the album).
Template:Sound sample box align right Template:Sample box end "Ride a White Swan" was quickly followed by a second single, "Hot Love", which reached number one on the UK charts, and stayed there for six weeks (the longest stay of any number one single in 1971). A full band, containing bass (Steve Currie) and drums (Bill Legend) was formed to tour to growing audiences, with teenagers mostly replacing the hippies of old. Chelita Secunda (wife of Tony Secunda, manager of The Move, and for a brief period, T. Rex) added two spots of glitter under Bolan's eyes before an appearance on Top of the Pops, controversially viewed as the official birth of glam rock. (Some attribute its beginnings to Alice Cooper, who would dress in torn women's clothing as part of his stage act. However, Tyrannosaurus Rex's first album was before Cooper's and Bolan was known to wear women's clothing before "Glam" officially arrived. Likewise, "Glam" is a unique style and is not solely defined by androgyny, which was common of many pre- and post-glam performers, ranging from Marlene Dietrich to Little Richard to Robert Smith.) After Bolan's glittery display, however, glam rock would sweep the United Kingdom and many parts of Europe during 1971/1972, producing acts of varying worth.
The move to electric guitars coincided with Bolan's more sexual lyrical style and image, which outraged some of his older hippie fans, who called him a "sell-out". Some of the lyrical virtues of Tyrannosaurus Rex remained, but the rambles about wizards and magic were interspliced with grunts and groans and innuendo. The new image was to influence more sexually explicit performers of the 1980s, such as Prince. (Ironically, at the time, some people were concerned over the lyrical content of some T. Rex songs, notably "Baby Strange" on The Slider album (containing the lines "I wanna ball ya", "I wanna get you in bed", and "don't lay me, Baby Strange," saying they promoted lewd sexuality to pre-teen girls.)
The second T. Rex album, Electric Warrior, released in September 1971, added bassist Steve Currie and drummer Bill Legend. Considered by many to be their best album, it brought great success to the group. Publicist BP Fallon coined the term "T. Rextasy" as a parallel to Beatlemania. A couple of years of regular chart success followed, with hit singles such as "Metal Guru" and "Telegram Sam" pouring off what came to resemble a production line.
Electric Warrior included T. Rex's best-known song, titled (in the UK) "Get It On," which hit number one on the British charts, like the album from which it came. In January 1972 it became a Top Ten hit in the US, where the song was retitled "Bang A Gong (Get It On)" to distinguish it from a song with the same name by the group Chase, also released in 1971. Along with Bowie's hits, "Get it On" and Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll" were two of the few British glam rock songs that had success in the US.
Electric Warrior was the band's last album with Fly Records, whom Bolan left when his contract lapsed and they released the album track "Jeepster" without his permission. Bolan went to EMI, who gave him his own record label in the UK, T. Rex, the "T. Rex Wax Co.".
On March 18, 1972, T. Rex played two shows at the Empire Pool, Wembley, which were filmed by Ringo Starr and his crew for Apple Films. A large part of the second show was included on Marc Bolan's own rock film Born to Boogie, while bits and pieces of the first show can be seen throughout the credits at the end of the film. Along with Marc Bolan & T. Rex and Ringo Starr, Born to Boogie also featured Elton John, who jammed with the friends to create rockin' studio versions of "Children of the Revolution" and "Tutti Frutti"; Elton John had appeared on TV with Bolan before, playing (miming, actually) the piano part to "Get it On" on the 1971 Christmas edition of "Top of The Pops".
The third album under the name T. Rex, The Slider was released in July 1972. It became the band's most successful album in the US, but wasn't as successful as Electric Warrior in the UK, only reaching #4. During spring/summer 1972 Bolan's old label Fly had been 'cashing-in' with the #1 compilation album Bolan Boogie, a collection of A- and B-sides and LP tracks, which had a bad effect on The Slider's sales. However, the two singles released from The Slider, "Telegram Sam" and "Metal Guru" both flopped in the US, but became #1 hits in the UK.
Born to Boogie was premièred at the Oscar One cinema in London, in December 1972, with Bolan, Ringo Starr, and Elton John in attendance. The film received negative reviews from critics, while it was loved by fans. Recently, the song "The Slider," from the album of the same name, was featured in a US Coca-Cola commercial. The film is now available as a greatly-expanded two-DVD set, released by Sanctuary Records in 2005. This includes both concerts from Wembley (18 March 1972) newly mixed into 5.1 surround-sound by Tony Visconti, and edited from the original remastered film negative. See www.borntoboogie.net.
Disintegration, recovery and death
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Original members of the band began to leave, the first being Bill Legend in November 1973, alienated by Bolan's increasingly egotistical behaviour, which was fed by success, money, cocaine, and brandy. Bolan and his wife/manager June split and he began a relationship with Gloria Jones, a session singer and writer, on the band's second major US tour. Jones had achieved fame in the US for the 1964 recording "Tainted Love," written by Ed Cobb of the Four Preps. In the early 1980s, the UK group Soft Cell gained notoriety and worldwide success with their cover of this song.
Bolan split with producer Tony Visconti in early 1974, after the album Zinc Alloy and the Hidden Riders of Tomorrow failed to become a major hit. From the 1975 Bolan's Zip Gun album onwards, Bolan produced his own material in addition to writing the songs. The final song recorded with Visconti had been "Till Dawn", which was re-recorded for Bolan's Zip Gun with Marc at the controls. Bolan's own productions were not well received in the music press (Rolling Stone magazine gave Zinc Alloy and all further studio albums one star out of five).
Jones became Bolan's backing singer, keyboard player, lover, and the mother of his only child, Rolan, who was born in September 1975. Mickey Finn left the band in December 1974. Always a fantasist with an alleged Napoleon complex, Bolan grew increasingly isolated from the "real world," and high UK tax rates drove him into exile in Monte Carlo and the US. No longer a vegetarian, he grew heavy on a diet of hamburgers and alcohol, and was ridiculed in the music press.
In 1976 T.Rex released their penultimate album, Futuristic Dragon, which was better received, but only managed to reach No.50. The album featured the singles "New York City" (Which reached No.15 in the summer of 1975) and "Dreamy Lady" (No.30). To promote the album, Bolan made performances on such programmes as Top of the Pops, Supersonic and Get It Together, and toured the UK.
In the summer of 1976, T.Rex released two more singles, "I Love To Boogie" (which charted At No.13 and would appear on the Dandy In The Underworld album) And "Laser Love" which only scraped to No. 42. In early 1977. His final album, Dandy in the Underworld, was released to great critical acclaim. Bolan had now slimmed down and regained his elfin beauty.
A spring UK tour with The Damned as support act garnered positive reviews. In the late summer of 1977 Bolan hosted his own ITV show, Marc. Bolan was a crusader for punk rock, which led him to invite many punk artists to appear on the show. Interested in bridging the gap between the rock and roll of the early seventies with the younger generation's punk scene, the format was for Bolan to play his own music, both old and new, as well as to introduce upcoming bands, which included The Jam, Generation X, Eddie & the Hot Rods, and Boomtown Rats.
On the final episode of Marc, recorded on 7 September 1977, a long-awaited performance with his old friend David Bowie was scheduled. As the 1970s' two outstanding English performers begin their duet at the show's finale, Marc tripped and fell off the stage. Bowie smiled and the credits abruptly rolled. This was Marc's final public appearance, for he would die a week later.
As Bolan was enjoying a new surge in popularity. He talked about performing again with Finn and Took, as well as rejoining producer Tony Visconti. However, after drinking at the Speakeasy and then dining at Morton's club on Berkeley Square, central London, at a few minutes before 5 a.m. on September 16, 1977, he was killed almost instantly when his purple Mini 1275GT, driven by Gloria Jones, hit a tree (now the site of Bolan's Rock Shrine), at Barnes Bridge, Barnes, South West London, less than a mile from his home at 142 Upper Richmond Road West in Richmond. He died two weeks before his 30th birthday. Marc had never learned to drive a car, and was known to fear them for he had visions all his life of dying in a car crash (references to which appear in some of his lyrics, notably 1972's "Solid Gold Easy Action"). Gloria Jones - severely injured - survived the crash, and shortly afterwards she fled to her native America with Rolan.
The manner of Bolan's death was made even more incredible when one considers the number of automotive references made in his songs. Whilst some of these may appear coincidental, and may easily be explained by Bolan's love of fifties US music showing a similar obsession, there are a few references that have led some commentators to see an uncanny element to Bolan's death. Given Bolan's relatively low profile outside the UK this aspect of his death has remained a cultish fascination but the strongest of the strange elements were gathered in the radio play 'Children of the Revolution' by Neil Nixon. Amongst these is a comment in a radio interview with Nicky Horne in 1973 when Horne asked; 'Where does Marc Bolan hope to be in five years time?' Bolan replied; 'I hope to be alive still, that's all I can say.' (interview features as a track on box-set 'A Wizard, A True Star.') It was known amongst his closest friends that Bolan often thought he'd die young and he is reported to have told Gloria Jones he didn't expect to see 30 or his son's second birthday. However, he did plan ahead and it is also widely accepted he was planning to marry Gloria in early 1978. The rock star once described himself as a 'gypsy explorer' in the lyrics to 'Dandy in the Underworld.' The site of Bolan's fatal accident is between Rocks Lane and Gypsy Lane. Another oddity concerns a copy of the NME found in Bolan's wrecked Mini car. It was open at an interview with Pete Townsend, the headline on the interview read; 'Hope I Die Before I Get Old.'
Mickey Finn's T. Rex
In 1997 Mickey Finn and Paul Fenton, who had formerly played drums on many T. Rex albums, "reformed" T. Rex after performing together with Rolan on the twentieth anniversary of Marc Bolan's death. They took the name Mickey Finn's T. Rex because Bolan was the leader of the original T. Rex. They are still around today even after Finn's death. They changed their name to T. Rex (A Celebration of Marc and Mickey).
Influence
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The band had an undeniable influence on punk rock and Britpop, while many modern indie bands play music heavily influenced by the glam scene, especially T. Rex. The early acoustic material was influential in helping to bring about progressive rock and 21st century folk music-influenced singers. Cover songs have been recorded by many groups, notably Power Station's hit 1985 take on "Get It On", Iggy Pop's version of "20th Century Boy", The Bongos' 1981 version of "Mambo Sun", and Bauhaus' cover of "Telegram Sam." The Smiths have actually claimed to have borrowed heavily from portions of "Metal Guru" for their 1986 hit "Panic," although some have suggested that this is completely obvious and need not be claimed. Siouxsie & the Banshees recorded a cover of "20th Century Boy" as a B-side on their single "The Staircase (Mystery)". In earlier concerts, legendary rock band X Japan performed an arranged version of "20th Century Boy". Placebo recorded a cover of "20th Century Boy" for the film Velvet Goldmine. Def Leppard also did a cover version of "20th Century Boy" on their 2006 cover album, Yeah!. A 1950s retro version appears in the film The Truman Show. The band also have noticeable influence on Scottish indie act, The Fratellis, where the B-sides on both versions of Baby Fratelli are T. Rex songs, "Ooh La", "Hot Love" being a combination of T. Rex and Goldfrapp songs, and "Solid Gold Easy Action", which The Fratellis covered for the movie Hot Fuzz. The song "Hot Love" also appears in the Lars von Trier movie, Breaking the Waves.
Some later hard rock groups were influenced not only by the music of T. Rex, but also by the outrageously sexual lyrics of "Bang a Gong (Get it on)", "Baby Strange", and other songs.
Songs by T.Rex were also featured on the soundtrack for the movie Billy Elliot.
Toni Collette & the Finish covered "Children Of The Revolution" at the Sydney Live Earth concert.
Discography
(Numbers listed after the titles are highest UK chart positions.)
Albums
- As Tyrannosaurus Rex
| Year | Title | Label | UK Chart Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1968 | |||
| 1968 | |||
| 1969 | |||
| 1970 |
- As T. Rex
| Year | Title | Label | UK Chart Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1970 | |||
| 1971 | |||
| 1972 | |||
| 1973 | |||
| 1974 | |||
| 1975 | |||
| 1976 | |||
| 1977 |
- Compilations
| Year | Title | Label | UK Chart Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1971 | |||
| 1972 | |||
| 1973 | |||
| 1974 | (U.S. Release combining tracks from Zinc Alloy and Bolan's Zip Gun) |
Singles
- Tyrannosaurus Rex
| Year | Title | Label | UK Chart Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1968 | |||
| 1968 | |||
| 1969 | |||
| 1969 | |||
| 1970 |
- T. Rex
| Year | Title | Label | Chart Position | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UK | US | CAN | |||||
| 1970 | #2 | #76 | #48 | ||||
| 1971 | #1 | #72 | #47 | ||||
| 1971 | #1 | #10 | #12 | ||||
| 1971 | #2 | - | #73 | ||||
| 1972 | #1 | #67 | #66 | ||||
| 1972 | #1 | - | #45 | ||||
| 1972 | #2 | - | - | ||||
| 1972 | #2 | - | - | ||||
| 1973 | #3 | - | - | ||||
| 1973 | #4 | - | - | ||||
| 1973 | #12 | - | - | ||||
- Marc Bolan and T. Rex
| Year | Title | Label | UK Chart Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1974 |
- T. Rex
| Year | Title | Label | UK Chart Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1974 | |||
| 1974 | |||
| 1975 |
- T. Rex Disco Party
| Year | Title | Label | UK Chart Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1975 |
- T. Rex
| Year | Title | Label | UK Chart Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1976 | |||
| 1976 | |||
| 1976 | |||
| 1977 | |||
| 1977 | |||
| 1977 |
Member history
| Tyrannosaurus Rex (Aug 1967 - Oct 1969) |
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| Tyrannosaurus Rex (Oct 1969 - Dec 1970) |
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| T. Rex (Dec 1970 - Jul 1973) |
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| T. Rex (Jul 1973 - Nov 1973) |
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| T. Rex (Nov 1973 - Dec 1974) |
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| T. Rex (Jan 1975 - Aug 1976) |
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| T. Rex (Aug 1976 - Sep 1977) |
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See also
- Blackhill Enterprises, Bolan's management
- Bolan's Rock Shrine, a memorial to Bolan on the site of his fatal car crash
References
- "Marc Bolan: T. Rextasy" by Mark Paytress (Mojo, issue no. 138, May 2005)
- Bolan: The Rise and Fall of a 20th Century Superstar by Mark Paytress (Omnibus Press, 2003)
- Marc Bolan: 1947–1977 A Chronology by Cliff McLenehan (Helter Skelter Publishing, 2002)
- Born to Boogie: The Songwriting of Marc Bolan by Carl Ewens (Aureus Pulbishing, 2007)