Chapter II: How To Consult The Book
A. Being a record buff myself,
this discography is written with other collectors in mind who want to have
everything by the group and the individuals that has been released on record.
I have tried to list all the records that have been released by Roxy Music,
all the solo recordings and all the records with any involvement of Roxy
Music members (I count Eddie Jobson as a member for this purpose), be it
as musicians, producers, writers or anything else they did on (or to) the
recording in question. I am sure that this collection is still by no means
complete. There may be many more records that could not be traced or are
very hard to find. The main problem stemmed from the fact that Eno, Mackay
and Manzanera recorded so much with so many different groups that it was
nearly impossible to keep trace of what everybody was doing on whose records
in what year. I hope I have at least got all the main involvements, missing
out some B-sides, different mixes here and there.
Another source of trouble was the invention and acceptance
of the CD after the first edition of the book had been compiled in 1985.
A lot of vinyl records were re-released on CD, sometimes in different combinations,
sometimes with different mixes, more songs, longer cuts of songs than on
the LP, etc. I tried to include anything that I could get hold of, which
may not be very much at all in some cases.
Nevertheless, for all its shortcomings, I hope this
collection will still be a great help for any collector.
B. Included in the book are
all Roxy Music activities, all solo activities and collaborations and all
the session work by the individuals. Each soloist has his own chapter,
as have 801 and the Explorers. Record company politics forced me to include
a chapter on Bryan Ferry & Roxy Music as well, as the recordings with
the combined releases fit neither under the individual nor the group chapter.
The difference between a solo activity and a collaboration
is that on solo recordings the artist is the person under whose name or
under whose group name the record has been released, on collaborations
it has been released under more than one artists' name (e. g. Fripp &
Eno; Byrne & Eno). Session work mentions the artist only on the back
of the cover as a musician, producer or composer etc. "Session"
does not only mean playing, but also producing, mixing, writing songs for
someone or appearing in any other form - maybe just in the thank yous -
on a record. This chapter is more or less a chapter, where all other activities
outside Roxy Music and the solo recordings have been listed. The entries
are listed in alphabetical order of the artists who have released the record.
Added is a chapter on oddities, this means recordings which might include
someone from Roxy Music but not saying so and recordings that might not
have been released after all. To complete the discography, a chapter on
sample records is also added, samplers being recordings with a compilation
of tracks that have been released elsewhere.
Each chapter has five different sections: