Tom Newman

Emerging from the psychedelic collective July, Tom Newman stood out as a particularly persistent figure whose roots extended well before that ensemble. He entered the world in 1943 and was still in his early teens when rock & roll arrived in England. By the late 1950s he belonged to a skiffle group called the Playboys; during the first years of the following decade the band shifted toward rock & roll and R&B, first adopting the name the Thoughts and then the Tomcats. The lineup featured Tony Duhig on lead guitar and vocals, Jon Field on percussion and vocals, Chris Jackson on drums, and Newman handling lead vocals, guitar, and keyboards; those same musicians would later form July. In the meantime the Tomcats scored success in Spain through a series of Spanish-language covers, yet they came back to England amid the psychedelic period and adjusted to the prevailing sound by renaming themselves July. The group produced only one single and a superb, now exceedingly rare album before disbanding in 1969. Newman then pursued parallel paths as a session guitarist and solo performer; in the early 1970s he collaborated with Mike Oldfield on Tubular Bells, signed with Richard Branson’s Virgin Records label, and constructed Manor Studios for the company. After issuing one solo studio album there he parted ways with Virgin and went on to record the ambitious Faerie Symphony, on which he rejoined his former July colleague Jon Field. In 1976 Newman established his own facility, Argonaut, which served as the main base for his subsequent work, frequently alongside Field and Fred Frith. He nevertheless contracted with Decca Records in 1977 for the release of Faerie Symphony, one of the final unabashedly progressive rock long-players issued in England at a time when the style had clearly fallen from favor. Since those years Newman has continued charting his own course, creating pieces that span quasi-New Age ambient textures and sing-along numbers.