Richard Purden
The May Fair Hotel in London’s West End was once famous for highsociety ballroom dances featuring Big Band leader Bert Ambrose. Today, it hosts a very different kind of bandleader; at least that’s how Johnny Marr describes himself after rejecting previous terms such as ‘songwriter’ (too “Jackson Browne”) and ‘guitar slinger for hire’.
Marr admits that no-nonsense self perception has a lot to do with his workingclass background growing up as a secondgeneration Irish kid in 1970s Manchester. It’s more than 40 years since he formed his first band, aged 13. After moving from Ardwick to Wythenshawe, once the largest council estate in Europe, he was able to draw upon a notable pool of musicians, which featured fellow Smith Andy Rourke, Billy Duffy (The Cult) and former Coronation Street actor Kevin Kennedy.
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