Roy Wood

Ulysses Adrian Wood, known as Roy (born 8 November 1946 in Birmingham), is a songwriter, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist.

He was particularly successful in the 1960s and 1970s as member and (co-)founder of the bands The Move, Electric Light Orchestra and Wizzard. As a songwriter, he contributed a huge number of hits to the repertoire of these groups. He was not only known for playing guitar but also many other instruments, both in studio and on the stage. On some of his albums he has played every instrument himself.

His first group in Birmingham in the early 1960s was Gerry Levine and the Avengers. Then, he went on with Mike Sheridan and the Nightriders (the band later to become Idle Race, in which his congenial musical partner Jeff Lynne made his first steps). From this and a variety of other Birmingham-based groups the most talented musicians formed The Move, and Roy became their musical leader. The Move quickly entered the charts and were famous for spectacular stage shows. After the departure of Move's singer Carl Wayne, Roy, who was mentioned as being shy, was pushed into the front position. He acquired a wild image wearing some sort of Indian disguise. Since the Move members could not agree on the musical direction and perhaps also because of their weird stage shows, the musical potential of the group was underestimated. Therefore, Roy Wood developed plans to realize his ambitions in separate projects.

Roy loves sound experiments and complex arrangements and is in this respect one of the most progressive musicians of his time. He was a proponent of combining rock'n'roll music with other styles like classical music or big band sound. In his bands, string and brass players were integrated members. When The Move was still on tour, he founded, together with his band colleagues Jeff Lynne and Bev Bevan, the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), which was later led to big commercial success by Lynne. ELO broadened the basis of a rock band by adding a string section. Roy Wood followed the same idea with Wizzard, which assembled celloists, brassists and a bigger rhythm section with several drummers and percussonists. In parallel, he also published several solo albums testing further musical directions (his 1973 album, Boulders, was an almost entirely solo effort, right down to the sleeve artwork).

The lineup of albums was always fascinating because of the big number of instruments Roy and his band members were playing. Roy himself is mentioned as singer as well as player of guitars, sitar, cello, saxophones, clarinet, trombone, tuba, recorders, oboe, French horn, bassoon, drums, percussion, vibraphone, bagpipes and keyboards.

As of the mid 1970s Roy Wood appeared less active in the public and the commercial success somewhat faded away. His musical experiments did not always match the popular taste. Maybe, here lies one of the reasons for his somewhat mysterious departure from ELO after the first album, which has never been clearly commented in the public. However, he remained unweary in his studio work as musician, producer and song writer. He was a big Elvis fan but he never succeeded in getting the King to adopting one of his compositions. Every once in a while he pops up with an album release or also on stage with groups called Wizzo, The Helicopters or Roy Wood's Army.

Roy Wood got more than 20 singles into the UK Top 40 including several number one hits. His regularly (once a year) performed oldie but goodie is "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day".

Roy Wood is not to be confused with Ron Wood.

Discography

Solo albums

• Boulders (1973)
• Mustard (1975)
• Super Active Wizzo (1977)
• On The Road Again (1979)
• Starting up (1986)
• Main Street (2000)
• Outstanding Performer (2003)

see also: The Move, Electric Light Orchestra, Wizzard

Weblinks

• Roy Wood's website (http://www.roywood.co.uk/)de:Roy Wood