Roxy Music consists of Andy Mackay, Brian Eno, Bryan Ferry (vocals, keyboards, piano, harmonica).
Roxy Music is a British art rock group founded in the early 1970s as a collaborative project between art school graduates Bryan Ferry ( vocals, keyboards) and Brian Eno (electronic music specialist). The band existed from 1971 through 1983 (though without Eno after 1973), then reunited for a concert tour in 2001, and has announced that they will be recording a new album in 2005.
The group's name was partly an homage to the titles of old cinemas and dance halls, and partly a pun on the word 'rock'. The juxtaposition of nostalgic and contemporary (or futuristic) themes was a distinctive feature of the band, particularly in their earliest incarnation. The group is noted for their combination of idiosyncratic experimentation and sophisticated wit, evident in their literate lyrics, restrained instrumental virtuosity, and highly developed visual presentation (mainly directed by Ferry) which expropriated imagery from the realms of high fashion and commercial photography.
Roxy Music was a significant influence on the early British punk movement, as well as providing a model for many " New Wave" acts and the subsequent New Romantic and experimental electronic groups of the early 1980s. Ferry and Eno have also had broadly influential solo careers.
In the winter of 1970/1971, ceramics teacher Bryan Ferry advertised for a keyboard player to collaborate with him and Graham Simpson, a bass player he knew from his art college band, "The Gas Board." Andy MacKay replied to the advertisement, not as a keyboard player but as a saxophonist and oboist; however, he did possess a VCS3 synthesiser. Andy met Brian Eno during university days, as both were interested in avant-garde and electronic music. It was some time later that they met again, and as Brian could play a synthesizer and owned a Revox reel to reel tape machine, Andy convinced him to join the fledgling band as a technical advisor. It wasn't long before Eno was a performing member of the group. After Dexter Lloyd, a classically trained timpanist, left the fledgling band, the group placed an ad seeking a 'wonder drummer'. Drummer Paul Thompson joined the line-up in June, 1971. Soon after that guitarist Phil Manzanera made them a five-piece.