T.Rex (band)
| T. Rex | |
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| Background information | |
| Also known as |
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| Origin | London, England |
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| Years active | 1967–1977 |
| Labels | |
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| Past members |
Marc Bolan Steve Peregrin Took Mickey Finn Steve Currie Bill Legend Gloria Jones Jack Green Dino Dines Davy Lutton Miller Anderson Herbie Flowers Tony Newman |
T. Rex were an English glam rock band, formed in 1967 by singer-songwriter and guitarist Marc Bolan. The band was initially called Tyrannosaurus Rex, and released four folk albums under this banner. In 1969, Bolan began to make a shift from basing his band's sound around an acoustic guitar to basing it around an electric one and shortened their name to T. Rex. "Ride a White Swan" in 1970 coincided with the culmination of this change and instantly became a commercial success.
From 1970 until 1973, T. Rex encountered a popularity in the UK comparable to that of the Beatles, with a run of eleven singles in the UK top ten. They scored four UK number one hits, "Hot Love", "Get It On", "Telegram Sam" and "Metal Guru". The band's 1971 album Electric Warrior received critical acclaim as a pioneering glam rock album. It reached number 1 in the UK. The 1972 follow-up, The Slider, entered the top 20 in the US. At the end of 1973, T. Rex started to have less commercial success but kept on recording one album per year.
In 1977, Bolan died in a car accident several months after releasing their final studio album Dandy in the Underworld. Since then, T. Rex have continued to exert a vast influence on a variety of subsequent artists.
Marc Bolan founded Tyrannosaurus Rex in August 1967, following a handful of failed solo singles and a brief career as lead guitarist in psych-rock band John's Children. After a disastrous solitary performance as a four-piece at the Electric Garden in London's Covent Garden, the group immediately broke up. Subsequently, Bolan retained the services of percussionist Steve Peregrin Took and began performing acoustic material as a duo with a repertoire of folk-influenced Bolan-penned songs with an eastern flavour, an obvious homage to Indian musician Ravi Shankar. The combination of Bolan's acoustic guitar and distinctive vocal style with Took's bongos and assorted percussion—which often included children's instruments such as the Pixiphone—earned them a devoted following in the thriving hippy underground scene. BBC Radio One Disc jockey John Peel championed the band early in their recording career. Peel later appeared on record with them, reading stories written by Bolan. Another key collaborator was producer Tony Visconti, who went on to produce the band's albums well into their second, glam rock phase.
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