Francis Rossi

Cranking out strutting, retro blues riffs and cheeky, good-time rock boogies, Francis Rossi helped turn Status Quo from a late-1960s psychedelic curiosity into giant denim-clad, Brit-blues heroes, before he finally released his debut solo album King of the Doghouse in 1996. Born in Lewisham, South London (29 May 1949), Rossi's family had come to the UK from Italy in the 1920s and founded a successful chain of ice cream parlours. Although expected to join the family business, after seeing The Everly Brothers on television and discovering pop music through Radio Luxembourg, he formed his first band at when he was just 13. By 1965 he was playing a residency at the Butlins holiday camp with The Spectres and, after recruiting Rick Parfitt from a rival group who were also on the bill, they evolved into Status Quo and scored their first top ten hit in 1968 with Rossi's Beatles-style, Lowry-inspired "Pictures of Matchstick Men". Together Parfitt and Rossi really crafted their trademark chugging pub-rock, blues stomp on the 1972 album Piledriver and they went on to score more than 50 top 40 singles and 20 top ten albums including massive anthems "Rockin' All Over the World", "Whatever You Want" and their first number one hit "Down Down". Despite sneers from critics deriding their cheeky chappie image and basic three-chord blues rock, the band opened the global Live Aid concert in 1985 and were subsequently backed by a loyal audience for decades, until Parfitt, who suffered a string of health problems, passed away in 2016. Rossi's debut solo offering, King of the Doghouse in 1996 was full of soulful pop with horn sections and backing singers to supplement his Telecaster riffs. The majority of the album was written with Tony McAnaney and produced the single "Give Myself to Love", but soon afterwards Rossi returned to touring with Status Quo. A second solo album, One Step at a Time, arrived in 2010 and featured songs written with Guy Thompson and with his son Nicholas Rossi, while also including a re-working of Quo's early hit "Caroline". He was also awarded an OBE and took Quo on their first acoustic tour, before returning in 2019 with a revealing autobiography and a collaboration with singer and violinist Hannah Rickard on the rootsy, country-inspired album We Talk Too Much. Issued in 2025, The Way We Were, Vol. 1 is a collection of boogie rock recordings from 2002 to 2010.

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