Phil Manzanera – My Life In Music

For your pleasure, the Roxy Music guitarist reveals his most impactful albums: “It was too exciting for words”…

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BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB

Buena Vista Social Club

WORLD CIRCUIT, 1997

I started learning guitar in Havana, being taught by my mum. There was no Bert Weedon’s Play In A Day for me, it was bolero and son. I don’t think my parents had heard about babysitters – they’d often take me to the Tropicana Club and the Sans Souci, with people like Rubén González playing piano and Omara Portuondo singing… and the Buena Vista Social Club album has them on it. I was immensely jealous of Ry Cooder in some ways, because I had gone back to Cuba in 1991-92 and started playing with Cuban musicians. And then this came out and I said, ‘Aw, hang on!’ But obviously I was absolutely delighted that we had them for a brief moment before they all died off.

ELVIS PRESLEY

Elvis’ Golden Records

RCA VICTOR, 1958

This was like his greatest hits to date, so you get “Heartbreak Hotel”, “All Shook Up”, all the classic ones. I was in Cuba ’til after the revolution, then I was in Hawaii, and then I was in Venezuela. And because Elvis made films, he travelled internationally. Once Elvis appeared, I realised there was a thing called rock’n’roll. Girls in our class would be obsessed with these American college kids playing Elvis and Buddy Holly. And our world changed. Funnily enough, I did get to play with Scotty Moore in Air Studios in London. That was an amazing thing, ’cause when you hear those records and you hear how simple but nailed-on his playing is, you get it. And I got it!

THE WHO

My Generation

BRUNSWICK, 1965

When I listened to the World Service, I could hear The Shadows and Cliff and stuff like that. So I said to my parents, ‘Send me to boarding school in London!’ To be fair, my older brother was there already. Then The Beatles happened, The Kinks, the Stones and The Who, which was incredibly exciting. Little did I know at the time that Pete Townsend had gone to art school, but I seemed to be drawn to art students who formed bands, bringing this other dimension to pop and rock that allowed it to evolve. But obviously with all the smashing of guitars and the feedback and the anarchy and Keith Moon drumming like a feral beast, it was just too exciting for words.

THE BEATLES

Revolver

PARLOPHONE, 1966

This is the beginning of the fruition of art-rock, because it’s the start of albums that have different kinds of styles, that use the studio as an instrument. You’ve got these incredibly talented four guys, but you’ve also got George Martin and Geoff Emerick and Abbey Road, and ultimately you get a song like “Tomorrow Never Knows” which isn’t a song in the normal way. What they’re able to do is draw in all these different influences, from the Radiophonic Workshop to Indian music. They were overdubbing on top of the tapes, putting stuff backwards, phasing. They realised that they didn’t have to necessarily play [everything] live, so they were free. It’s difficult for people to imagine now how extraordinary it was to hear that stuff at the time.

THE JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE

Are You Experienced

TRACK, 1967

When I saw Jimi Hendrix playing “Hey Joe” on Top Of The Pops, I wanted to run towards the screen and jump inside. I’d never heard the guitar played like that. As we know, everybody in London was scared out of their brains because he was the new gunslinger in town, and a showman as well. I was at the Saville Theatre when he played “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” the week of release. The Beatles were up in a box watching it, and they couldn’t believe their eyes. His playing was incredibly exciting and incredibly innovative, and the production on Are You Experienced was out there breaking new ground. Having heard The Beatles, he wanted to do something special.

THE VELVET UNDERGROUND & NICO

The Velvet Underground & Nico

VERVE, 1967

I loved pop music but I also loved weirder stuff: Stravinsky and systems music and Terry Riley and Lamonte Young. So when it came to The Velvet Underground & Nico, you get lots of drone-type things from John Cale – and even Nico’s way of singing, I was very comfortable with that, and it influenced my sense of how I hear notes and being in tune. Obviously having Andy Warhol associated with it was a total box-tick in terms of art-rock. And it influenced so many people. Eno always had that quote: not many people bought the album, but everyone who did formed a band. Everybody in Roxy loved The Velvet Underground, so that was something that brought us together.

SOFT MACHINE

The Soft Machine

ABC PROBE, 1968

My best friend Bill MacCormick [future Quiet Sun bassist] knew Robert Wyatt’s family, so after school every day, Bill would pop into the little house where Soft Machine lived with Robert’s mum and hear all their stuff. We were superfans, we knew everything about them! We had the first album on import, and it sums up that whole coming together of improvised music, psychedelia and art. I always wanted my guitar to sound like the organ of Mike Ratledge, because he didn’t have a Hammond, he had a Lowrey which had a little pedal on it that you could bend notes with, and a fuzzbox. They looked very cool as well. Robert wore a banana-collared suit and Kevin Ayers always looked like a god.

DAVID BOWIE

The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars

RCA, 1972

Ziggy Stardust came out the same day as the first Roxy Music album. The following week, we supported Bowie at the Greyhound pub in Croydon. Up until the day he died, every time I saw David, we would laugh about that particular gig because he would say, ‘Phil, if I had a quid for everybody who said they were there, I’d be a millionaire.’ I’d say, ‘You are a millionaire!’ The only time I played on stage with him was at the Albert Hall when he was a guest on the David Gilmour tour that I played on, and that was the last time he ever performed in the UK. He came on to do “Arnold Layne” and knocked it out the park. Wow, incredible.

Phil Manzanera’s 50 Years Of Music boxset is released by UMR