Roy Wood

Wizzard were a Birmingham-based band formed by Roy Wood, former member of The Move and co-founder of Electric Light Orchestra. The Guinness Book of... 500 Number One Hits states, "Wizzard was Roy Wood just as much as Wings were Paul McCartney." Not long after the release of Electric Light Orchestra's first album, Wood found himself frequently at odds with co-leader Jeff Lynne. Deciding he wanted to head off in a different musical direction, Wood left, taking band members Bill Hunt and Hugh McDowell and ELO's sound engineer, Trevor Smith, with him, to found Wizzard. Also in the line-up were former Move bassist Rick Price, drummers Charlie Grima and Keith Smart , and saxophone players Mike Burney and Nick Pentelow . Hunt was later replaced by Bob Brady. The band made their live debut at a rock and roll festival at Wembley Stadium on 5 August 1972, followed by an appearance at the Reading Festival later that month.
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The Move, from Birmingham, England, were one of the leading British rock bands of the 1960s. They scored nine Top 20 UK singles in five years, but... were among the most popular British bands not to find any success in the United States. Although bassist-vocalist Chris "Ace" Kefford was the original leader, for most of their career The Move was led by guitarist, singer and songwriter Roy Wood. He composed all the group's UK singles and, from 1968, also sang lead vocals on many songs, although Carl Wayne was the main lead singer up to 1970. Initially the band had 4 main vocalists . The group evolved from several mid 1960s Birmingham based groups, including Carl Wayne and the Vikings, the Nightriders and the Mayfair Set. The group's name referred to the move various members of these bands made to form the group. Beside Wood, the original five-piece line-up of The Move in 1965 was drummer Bev Bevan, bassist Kefford, vocalist Carl Wayne and guitarist Trevor Burton. The final line-up of 1972 was the trio of Wood, Bevan and Jeff Lynne, who transitioned the group into the Electric Light Orchestra.
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Harvest Records was a progressive rock label of EMI, active from 1969 to 1984. Harvest Records was created by EMI in 1969 to promote progressive rock music and to compete with Philips' Vertigo and Decca's Deram labels, initially under the direction of Malcolm Jones and Norman Smith. Harvest was... distributed in North America by EMI's US arm, Capitol Records. With a launch release by The Edgar Broughton Band, it was home to such classic artists as Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, The Move, Electric Light Orchestra, Barclay James Harvest, Climax Blues Band, Syd Barrett, Kevin Ayers and Little River Band; Harvest also promoted more experimental styles of music. In addition, Harvest was the European licensee for the American label Blue Thumb Records from 1969 to 1971. Harvest Records' focus changed slightly as the 1970s drew to a close, beginning with the signing of post-punk groups Wire, The Saints and The Banned. New Wave artists Thomas Dolby and Duran Duran released their debut albums on the label in North America. Iron Maiden's first three albums were also released in the US by Harvest Records. Pink Floyd switched to Capitol after the release of The Final Cut in 1983.
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The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a British multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and was one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a... major publishing arm, EMI Music Publishing – also based in London with offices globally. The company was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index but since February 2011 it has been wholly owned by Citigroup . EMI is a member of the RIAA & IFPI. In November 2011 Citigroup announced a tentative deal to sell off pieces of the company with the music arm going to Vivendi's Universal Music Group for $1.9 billion and the publishing business going to a Sony/ATV consortium for around $2.2 billion. Other members of the Sony consortium include Blackstone and Abu Dhabi-owned investment fund Mubadala. Both before and after the sale announcement, Universal Music Group pledged to sell off EMI assets to the value of half a billion Euros.
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Regal Zonophone Records was a British record label formed in 1932, through a merger of the Regal Records and Zonophone Records labels. This followed the merger of those labels' respective parent companies - the Columbia Graphophone Company and the Gramophone Company - to form EMI. Originally Regal... Zonophone handled American releases from Okeh Records, Victor Records and Columbia Records, as well as offering home-grown recordings by artists such as Gracie Fields and George Formby. The label is also well known for its releases of Salvation Army music. In the 1950s the Australian division of Regal Zonophone played an important role in the emerging Australian country music genre, signing several emerging country stars including Slim Dusty, Smoky Dawson, Reg Lindsay and Chad Morgan. Slim Dusty's 1957 Regal Zonophone hit "A Pub With No Beer" became the biggest-selling Australian recording ever released up to that time.
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Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has... its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music. Rock music also drew strongly on a number of other genres such as blues and folk, and incorporated influences from jazz, classical and other musical sources. Musically, rock has centered around the electric guitar, usually as part of a rock group with bass guitar and drums. Typically, rock is song-based music usually with a 4/4 time signature utilizing a verse-chorus form, but the genre has become extremely diverse and common musical characteristics are difficult to define. Like pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political in emphasis. The dominance of rock by white, male musicians has been seen as one of the key factors shaping the themes explored in rock music. Rock places a higher degree of emphasis on musicianship, live performance, and an ideology of authenticity than pop music.
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