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INTERVIEWS, REVIEWS & RELATED ARTICLES

Record Collector FEBRUARY 2024 - by Jeremy Allen

PHIL MANZANERA: REVOLUCIÓN TO ROXY

Guitarist looks back over life in Roxy Music and more

Roxy Music's bug-eyed Anglo-Colombian guitarist has lived a charmed life, frequently finding himself in the right/wrong place at the right/wrong time (delete as applicable). Growing up with a diplomat father during the '50s, Phil Manzanera found himself settling in several places across Latin America before having to swiftly move on, including Cuba before and just after the revolution. Manzanera's opening chapter is fascinating enough, and his writing is clear and concise, though one wishes he'd employed a bit more show don't tell; the details are abundant even if he rarely gives up too much emotionally, and you conclude that maybe the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. There aren't too many new details about his time in Roxy Music, either, though his life outside the band is enlightening at times, from producing famous Hispanic artists who we blithely tend to ignore in the Anglosphere, to being instrumental in the process of bringing Pink Floyd's The Endless River to life. Perhaps best of all is the slightly bemused chapter about that time Jay-Z and Kayne West took a sample from his K-Scope album, earning him more money than he received in half a century of playing with Roxy.