HALF A CENTURY! Can it really be 50 years since six odd-bods without a recording contract booked a studio in Piccadilly to make an LP which still sounds as odd as a cat with two tails? It takes some believing what a thin year 1972 was for pop music. As David Hepworth has written persuasively in Never A Dull Moment, 1971 supplied a veritable harvest. That was the last roar of the Sixties, without the nonsense that accompanied the flower power period.
The following year was terrible. Guitar bands, the heavy brigade, prog-rockers, and a flotilla of singer-songwriters cast a long shadow over 1972. Or, to put skin on the bones of this dismal parade, it was the year of Wishbone Ash, Deep Purple, Yes and Cat Stevens.
Thank goodness for Roxy Music.
It was Bryan Ferry, a sometime art teacher, who led the team into Command Studios that spring to flesh out nine songs he, was released in June.
