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Mojo APRIL 2024 - by Mark Blake

PHIL MANZANERA: REVOLUCIÓN TO ROXY

Roxy Music guitarist's warm and conversational memoir.

Few musicians' autobiographies feature their subject witnessing a revolution. But growing up in Cuba (to a British father and Colombian mother), eight-year-old Phil Manzanera was there for Fidel Castro's historical coup. As he points out in this book's preface, "It's no problem if you want to skip straight to Roxy, but you'll be missing out on some cracking stories..." These include tales from a peripatetic childhood in Caracas, Hawaii and Dulwich and a nightmarish live performance with Bob Dylan. Manzanera doesn't stint on documenting Roxy Music, though, or recalling their clashing egos (Brian versus Bryan, especially). Manzanera's later admission that he earned more from Jay-Z and Kanye West sampling his solo track, K-Scope, than he did from Roxy, leaves him grateful but bemused. This isn't a deep, no-stone-unturned memoir, but it's none the worse for that. "Hasta la victoria, siempre," ("until victory, always") he signs off, quoting Che Guevara.