Biography
A veteran of Wales’s energetic but modest beat-group circuit, Roger “Deke” Leonard had already played with Lucifer and the Corncrackers, the Jets, the Blackjacks, the Jets once more, the Smokeless Zone, and the Dream before he stepped in for Vic Oakley with the Bystanders in 1968. That close-harmony outfit had simultaneously resolved to shift toward progressive music, and with Leonard’s arrival it rechristened itself Man. Shaped by the playing of Mick Green from the Pirates and by Bo Diddley, Leonard’s guitar technique and songwriting proved decisive as the group moved beyond its early concept-album phase into extended, spontaneous improvisation. After Live at the Padgett Rooms, Penarth appeared in 1972 he departed, promptly cutting the solo set Iceberg. The record prompted him to assemble a standing band that happened to open for Man on the road, yet the follow-up, Kamikaze, proved lackluster and ended the venture. Leonard then returned to his former bandmates and stayed until their first dissolution in 1976. In 1981 he finally finished a third album and joined Sean Tyla in the Force. He went on working in lower-profile circles both alone and with the reactivated Man, later producing two sharply observed books of group reminiscences that established him as a capable music journalist. Leonard died on 31 January 2017, aged 72.
Albums
