Biography
Bobby Sutliff earned modest recognition as a Southern power pop figure through his role as co-founder and primary creative force of the Windbreakers, a band whose smart, melodically inventive songs and incisive guitar playing drew praise from critics and fellow musicians during their 1980s prime. The 2003 anthology Time Machine [1982-2002] offers a strong overview of their catalog. Sutliff issued two understated solo albums while still active with the Windbreakers, and after their early-1990s breakup he declined to treat music as a vocation, though he kept composing and recording on his personal timetable; that warmly expressive and intelligently melodic sensibility appeared to strong effect on Perfect Dream in 2003 and On a Ladder in 2007.
Born in 1956, Bobby Sutliff grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, and played in the high-school band Oral Sox, which specialized in Rolling Stones covers and released an independent single in 1980. He met Tim Lee, another Jackson teenager drawn to idiosyncratic rock & roll, at an Alice Cooper concert. Sutliff and Lee formed the Windbreakers in 1981, rooting their sound in power pop shaped by classic 1960s influences. Sutliff joked in a 1987 interview, "Tim likes to say that my favorite bands were always anything that started with a B, like Byrds, Beatles, Beau Brummels." The group recorded the four-song 7" Meet the Windbreakers in 1982, then the six-song 12" Any Monkey with a Typewriter in 1983, the latter produced by Mitch Easter and featuring guitar from Richard Barone of the Bongos. A deal with Homestead Records followed in 1985, yielding the album Terminal later that year. Georgia indie label DB Records joined the band for their second LP, Run, issued in 1986, while 1987 brought Sutliff’s debut solo album Only Ghosts Remain; Mitch Easter produced, Sutliff played most instruments himself, and Easter, Barry Brown, and Tim Lee added contributions.
Two further Windbreakers albums appeared—A Different Sort in 1987 and At Home with Bobby & Tim in 1989—and the group continued to receive acclaim from power pop devotees and other Southern underground rockers, yet commercial prospects stayed limited and Sutliff grew weary of touring. Russ Tolman of True West produced Electric Landlady in 1991, the band’s final album; that same year Sutliff issued the cassette-only solo collection Griffin Bay. He formed the Flyrods for local gigs but chose a full-time career outside music, remaining largely absent from record buyers for most of the decade. Sutliff resurfaced in 2000 with Bitter Fruit, a set of home recordings mixed with unreleased studio tracks cut with Mitch Easter during the 1990s. Sutliff and Lee participated in a brief Windbreakers reunion in 2001, recording two songs that appeared on the 2003 collection Time Machine (1982-2002) and playing a few live shows before parting ways amicably. The activity revived Sutliff’s productivity, leading to the new studio album Perfect Dream in 2003. Allsorts, an archival release of twelve covers, demos, and studio outtakes, followed in 2006. Paisley Pop Records issued On a Ladder in 2007; the album was recorded mostly at home, after which Chris Stamey took the tapes to his studio, Modern Recording, for overdubs and mixing. Sutliff contributed to albums by Ron Sanchez’s studio project Donovan’s Brain and former Flamin’ Groovies singer Roy Loney, though his period as a headlining recording artist had ended. Sutliff moved to Ohio, where he suffered a serious auto accident in 2012. He recovered, yet received a cancer diagnosis in 2022 and died on August 30, 2022, at the age of 66.
Born in 1956, Bobby Sutliff grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, and played in the high-school band Oral Sox, which specialized in Rolling Stones covers and released an independent single in 1980. He met Tim Lee, another Jackson teenager drawn to idiosyncratic rock & roll, at an Alice Cooper concert. Sutliff and Lee formed the Windbreakers in 1981, rooting their sound in power pop shaped by classic 1960s influences. Sutliff joked in a 1987 interview, "Tim likes to say that my favorite bands were always anything that started with a B, like Byrds, Beatles, Beau Brummels." The group recorded the four-song 7" Meet the Windbreakers in 1982, then the six-song 12" Any Monkey with a Typewriter in 1983, the latter produced by Mitch Easter and featuring guitar from Richard Barone of the Bongos. A deal with Homestead Records followed in 1985, yielding the album Terminal later that year. Georgia indie label DB Records joined the band for their second LP, Run, issued in 1986, while 1987 brought Sutliff’s debut solo album Only Ghosts Remain; Mitch Easter produced, Sutliff played most instruments himself, and Easter, Barry Brown, and Tim Lee added contributions.
Two further Windbreakers albums appeared—A Different Sort in 1987 and At Home with Bobby & Tim in 1989—and the group continued to receive acclaim from power pop devotees and other Southern underground rockers, yet commercial prospects stayed limited and Sutliff grew weary of touring. Russ Tolman of True West produced Electric Landlady in 1991, the band’s final album; that same year Sutliff issued the cassette-only solo collection Griffin Bay. He formed the Flyrods for local gigs but chose a full-time career outside music, remaining largely absent from record buyers for most of the decade. Sutliff resurfaced in 2000 with Bitter Fruit, a set of home recordings mixed with unreleased studio tracks cut with Mitch Easter during the 1990s. Sutliff and Lee participated in a brief Windbreakers reunion in 2001, recording two songs that appeared on the 2003 collection Time Machine (1982-2002) and playing a few live shows before parting ways amicably. The activity revived Sutliff’s productivity, leading to the new studio album Perfect Dream in 2003. Allsorts, an archival release of twelve covers, demos, and studio outtakes, followed in 2006. Paisley Pop Records issued On a Ladder in 2007; the album was recorded mostly at home, after which Chris Stamey took the tapes to his studio, Modern Recording, for overdubs and mixing. Sutliff contributed to albums by Ron Sanchez’s studio project Donovan’s Brain and former Flamin’ Groovies singer Roy Loney, though his period as a headlining recording artist had ended. Sutliff moved to Ohio, where he suffered a serious auto accident in 2012. He recovered, yet received a cancer diagnosis in 2022 and died on August 30, 2022, at the age of 66.
Albums
Singles
