Biography
Roger Bunn scarcely registered as a familiar figure in the wider music scene, despite maintaining an active presence across key performances and ensembles throughout the final third of the 1960s. He regularly collaborated with prominent artists and appeared at significant venues, crossing paths early with David Bowie while contributing to the formation of groups such as Roxy Music, yet recognition stayed largely confined to fellow musicians rather than reaching broader audiences.
Born in 1942 as the son of a late, decorated military hero, Bunn later described a youth marked by prolonged separation from his mother. Much of that period unfolded in relative solitude, interrupted only occasionally by public events that highlighted his father’s wartime achievements. Toward the close of the 1950s he embraced the skiffle movement, particularly through Norwich’s local act the Saints, while also exploring American beat poetry and jazz. Having taken up guitar during adolescence, he secured the lead guitar position in the Bishops by decade’s end.
In the opening years of the 1960s he shifted to jazz bass and began working with Cockney rockabilly figure Joe Brown. Subsequent engagements returned him to guitar alongside Wee Willie Harris in Hamburg, after which he returned to East Anglia to join soul group the Bluebottles, whose lineup included Mike Patto. Although Bunn’s deepest affinity remained with jazz—especially the innovations of Charlie Parker rather than prevailing traditional styles—most of his employment came through rock and soul contexts. The Bluebottles shared bills with Manfred Mann and the Animals, and Bunn devoted available hours to Ronnie Scott’s jazz club.
Throughout the middle of the decade he performed with Graham Bond, Zoot Money, and Joe Harriott, and encountered Jimi Hendrix. He later recounted extensive use of recreational and hallucinogenic substances during those years, an experience that produced extended gaps in his recollection persisting into the 1980s. Additional work included stints with the Ken Stevens dance band and Marianne Faithfull’s backing group, as well as an unsuccessful audition for John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers that Mick Taylor secured. After a period with the South African expatriate ensemble the Blue Notes, Bunn joined Glenn Sweeney and Dave Tomlin in Giant Sun Trolley, sharing bills at the UFO Club with Pink Floyd, Soft Machine, the Crazy World of Arthur Brown, and Procol Harum, and participating in the celebrated event “The 14 Hour Technicolor Dream.”
A substantial portion of 1967 and the first months of 1968 found him traveling through Afghanistan, Iran, and Turkey. Upon returning to England he assembled the quartet Djinn, which briefly included a young David Bowie; although the association proved short-lived, Bowie retained “Life Is a Circus” in his repertoire for years afterward. Bunn subsequently lost control of the song’s copyright and received neither compensation nor acknowledgment for its later use. He also entered a brief partnership with lyricist and singer Pete Brown.
Bunn’s solo path advanced after he approached the Apple offices on Baker Street, where Paul McCartney’s recollection of their Hamburg encounters with the Beatles secured studio access for a series of demos. Those recordings led to a Philips Records contract and the album Piece of Mind, though Philips promptly licensed the project to the small Major-Minor label, which soon collapsed. Securing release took additional years. In the interim, drummer Laurie Allen invited Bunn to join the progressive band Piblokto, renewing his connection with Pete Brown and yielding brief visibility within turn-of-the-decade art rock circles. After departing that group to form Endjinn, Piece of Mind finally appeared, yet Endjinn itself produced Bunn’s most consequential engagement: he served as Roxy Music’s original guitarist from November 1970 through summer 1971. Long departed by the time the band secured a recording deal, his role has surfaced occasionally in Bryan Ferry’s later accounts.
From the early 1970s onward Bunn largely withdrew from music, aside from isolated projects such as an album by Mike McGear and, much later, recordings involving Davy Graham and Peggy Seeger. Political concerns occupied greater attention, particularly matters of national and corporate misconduct and greed, South African apartheid, the CIA’s involvement in the Afghan opium trade, and under-examined aspects of Western engagement in the Middle East. He died in July 2005, days after his sixty-third birthday—the same year that finally saw arrangements for a CD reissue of Piece of Mind, long viewed as one of the psychedelic era’s notable unreleased works.
Born in 1942 as the son of a late, decorated military hero, Bunn later described a youth marked by prolonged separation from his mother. Much of that period unfolded in relative solitude, interrupted only occasionally by public events that highlighted his father’s wartime achievements. Toward the close of the 1950s he embraced the skiffle movement, particularly through Norwich’s local act the Saints, while also exploring American beat poetry and jazz. Having taken up guitar during adolescence, he secured the lead guitar position in the Bishops by decade’s end.
In the opening years of the 1960s he shifted to jazz bass and began working with Cockney rockabilly figure Joe Brown. Subsequent engagements returned him to guitar alongside Wee Willie Harris in Hamburg, after which he returned to East Anglia to join soul group the Bluebottles, whose lineup included Mike Patto. Although Bunn’s deepest affinity remained with jazz—especially the innovations of Charlie Parker rather than prevailing traditional styles—most of his employment came through rock and soul contexts. The Bluebottles shared bills with Manfred Mann and the Animals, and Bunn devoted available hours to Ronnie Scott’s jazz club.
Throughout the middle of the decade he performed with Graham Bond, Zoot Money, and Joe Harriott, and encountered Jimi Hendrix. He later recounted extensive use of recreational and hallucinogenic substances during those years, an experience that produced extended gaps in his recollection persisting into the 1980s. Additional work included stints with the Ken Stevens dance band and Marianne Faithfull’s backing group, as well as an unsuccessful audition for John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers that Mick Taylor secured. After a period with the South African expatriate ensemble the Blue Notes, Bunn joined Glenn Sweeney and Dave Tomlin in Giant Sun Trolley, sharing bills at the UFO Club with Pink Floyd, Soft Machine, the Crazy World of Arthur Brown, and Procol Harum, and participating in the celebrated event “The 14 Hour Technicolor Dream.”
A substantial portion of 1967 and the first months of 1968 found him traveling through Afghanistan, Iran, and Turkey. Upon returning to England he assembled the quartet Djinn, which briefly included a young David Bowie; although the association proved short-lived, Bowie retained “Life Is a Circus” in his repertoire for years afterward. Bunn subsequently lost control of the song’s copyright and received neither compensation nor acknowledgment for its later use. He also entered a brief partnership with lyricist and singer Pete Brown.
Bunn’s solo path advanced after he approached the Apple offices on Baker Street, where Paul McCartney’s recollection of their Hamburg encounters with the Beatles secured studio access for a series of demos. Those recordings led to a Philips Records contract and the album Piece of Mind, though Philips promptly licensed the project to the small Major-Minor label, which soon collapsed. Securing release took additional years. In the interim, drummer Laurie Allen invited Bunn to join the progressive band Piblokto, renewing his connection with Pete Brown and yielding brief visibility within turn-of-the-decade art rock circles. After departing that group to form Endjinn, Piece of Mind finally appeared, yet Endjinn itself produced Bunn’s most consequential engagement: he served as Roxy Music’s original guitarist from November 1970 through summer 1971. Long departed by the time the band secured a recording deal, his role has surfaced occasionally in Bryan Ferry’s later accounts.
From the early 1970s onward Bunn largely withdrew from music, aside from isolated projects such as an album by Mike McGear and, much later, recordings involving Davy Graham and Peggy Seeger. Political concerns occupied greater attention, particularly matters of national and corporate misconduct and greed, South African apartheid, the CIA’s involvement in the Afghan opium trade, and under-examined aspects of Western engagement in the Middle East. He died in July 2005, days after his sixty-third birthday—the same year that finally saw arrangements for a CD reissue of Piece of Mind, long viewed as one of the psychedelic era’s notable unreleased works.
Albums