Roy Wood

Book excerpt: From the vibrant musical scene in Britain’s second largest city Birmingham, came a plethora of creative rock groups in the middle of the 1960s. Roy Wood, together with several well-known Birmingham faces, left their respective bands to form The Move and armed with Roy’s distinctive song writing style alongside the band’s unique harmonies, they became regulars on British TV’s flagship show Top of the Pops. Meanwhile, Jeff Lynne was starting to make his mark in fellow Birmingham group The Idle Race. These two brilliant songwriters were also close friends and Wood persuaded Lynne to join the Move and later a new project, The Electric Light Orchestra, before a parting of the ways led to Wood forming Wizzard. Roy Wood On Track looks at all of the music recorded by Roy during his time in The Move, ELO, Wizzard and during his sporadic solo career. An appendix also looks at the music of The Wood-linked Idle Race. Wood’s music touches on many genres including rhythm and blues, psych, pop, progressive rock and glam, but throughout his career he has been a true, and largely unsung, innovator. This book shows why his work is much, much greater than one famous yuletide single. James R. Turner is a graduate from Sheffield Hallam University in Media Studies and is now a music and media journalist. Over the last 25 years he has contributed to Rock Society Magazine, BBC Online, Albion Online, The Digital Fix, Dutch Progressive Rock Pages, Progarchy, Progradar and We Are Cult. James has also published poetry and short stories in two anthologies, personal reflections in two TV history books and one music book. He also works for Bad Elephant Music. He lives in North Somerset, UK, with his fiancée Charlotte, their West Highland Terrier Dilys, Rhodesian Ridgeback Freja, three cats and too many CDs and records.