Richard Lloyd, whose fluent and fiery guitar work was a vital element in the influential 1970s-era New York City band Television, died on Saturday at his home in Chattanooga, Tenn., according to the New York Times. The cause of death was bile duct cancer; he was 75.
Yet Television’s peak era was brief, lasting for just two albums before the band split in 1978 and Verlaine and Lloyd pursued solo careers, although the band reformed in 1992 and regrouped several times over the years.
Ironically, Television, which formed in 1973, were the band to initiate the Lower Manhattan club CBGB, which proved to be the key incubator for punk rock. According to legend, Verlaine and Lloyd were walking past the venue, saw owner Hilly Kristal outside and asked what kind of music the venue showcased. Told “Country, Bluegrass and Blues,” hence the club’s title, the pair replied that their band played something like that (it did not).
Things progressed quickly for the band from there — David Bowie famously called Television “the most original band I’ve seen in New York” — and the band signed with Elektra Records in 1976 and released “Marquee Moon” in February of 1977. Domestic sales were unimpressive but the band, and the scene, captured the imaginations of the influential British rock music press — where punk rock was exploding — and the band actually enjoyed three hit singles, successful tours and two top 10 albums in the U.K.
