Guitarist Steve Rothery, known from the band "Marillion", is celebrating his 62nd birthday today !!
(Photo: Wikipedia)
He was born on 25 November 1959 in a village in the south of Yorkshire, England.
He started playing guitar at the age of 15 and although his friends were influenced by the punk revolution that swept the UK he was actually interested in progressive rock.
He noted singer Joni Mitchell and her guitar playing as a big influence on him, especially the song "A Case of You" from her 1971 masterpiece album "Blue".
On August 19, 1979, he successfully auditioned for the band "Silmarillion". At the time the band members were Mick Pointer on drums, Doug 'Rastus' Irvine on bass, and Brian Jelliman on keyboards.
His first appearance with the band was on March 1, 1980, then the band also shortened its name to "Marillion".
In July 1981, after singer Fish joined the band, "Marillion" recorded demos to the first versions of the songs "He Knows You Know", and "Garden Party" that would appear on the first album "Script For A Jester’s Tear" and another song that would be released as a single called "Charting the Single".
The band's first opportunity came when they were invited to the "Friday Rock Show" on BBC Radio, where they played the songs "The Web", "Three Boats Down from The Candy" and "Forgotten Sons". This led to the signing of a recording contract with "EMI".
The band's first single "Market Square Heroes" was released in 1982, when the song "Grendel" appeared as its b-side.
The material for the first album was written by the band during their many performances. The album "Script For A Jester’s Tear" released in March 1983 received rave reviews and the band received the credit for being responsible for reviving the progressive genre that was dying out in the second half of the 1970s.
The band's big break into the mainstream came with the concept album "Misplaced Childhood" from 1985, the band's third album.
During his time in "Marillion", Steve focused on melodic music full of emotion and he developed a style of music playing that is a kind of combination of David Gilmour, Steve Hackett, and Andrew Latimer (Camel).
To date, he has released with "Marillion" 19 studio albums and 9 live albums.
In 1995 he formed the band "the Wishing Tree" together with the American folk singer Hannah Stobart. As part of the project, he released two studio albums: "Carnival of Souls" in 1996 and "Ostara" in 2009.
In 2014 he released the excellent solo album "The Ghosts of Pripyat".
He has been hosted by several artists such as: Steve Hackett, "Arena", "Gazpacho", and more.
This time we decided to write less and let the music speak.
Follow the link, we have arranged for you an hour with some of our favorite solos from Steve Rothery's rich repertoire: Click Here.