T. Rex were an English rock band fronted by guitarist, singer and songwriter Marc Bolan. Formed as Tyrannosaurus Rex in 1960s London, the folk rock group's debut album My People Were Fair and Had Sky in Their Hair... But Now They're Content to Wear Stars on Their Brows (1968) reached number 15 in the UK.
In the 1970s, they achieved mainstream success as a glam rock band with the hits "Get It On", "Ride a White Swan", "20th Century Boy", "Children of the Revolution", "Hot Love", "Telegram Sam" and "Metal Guru". After waning commercial success in the mid-70s, T. Rex ended in 1977 after Bolan was killed in a car accident.
As well as progressively shorter titles, Tyrannosaurus Rex's albums began to show higher production values, more accessible songwriting from Bolan, and experimentation with electric guitars and a true rock sound. The breakthrough was "King of the Rumbling Spires" (recorded with Took), which used a full rock band. The group's next album, T. Rex, continued the process of simplification by shortening the name, and completed the move to electric guitars. Visconti supposedly got fed up with writing the name out in full on studio chitties and tapes and began to abbreviate it; when Bolan first noticed he was angry but later claimed the idea was his. The new sound was more pop-oriented, and the first single, "Ride a White Swan", reached number two in the UK in late 1970. In early 1971, T. Rex reached the top 20 of the UK albums chart.
On 18 March 1972, T. Rex played two shows at the Empire Pool, Wembley which were filmed by Ringo Starr and his crew for Apple Films. A large part of the second show was included on Bolan's own rock film Born to Boogie, while bits and pieces of the first show can be seen throughout the film's end-credits. Along with T. Rex and Starr, Born to Boogie also features Elton John, who jammed with the friends to create rocking studio versions of "Children of the Revolution" and "Tutti Frutti"; Elton John had appeared on TV with Bolan before, miming the piano part of "Get it On" on the 1971 Christmas edition of Top of the Pops.
Some people collect baseball cards, I've spent 30 years collecting rare live concert footage, television performances and music videos. When we became full-time RV'ers my wife put her foot down and told me I had to do something with my collection. The result is this website, initially a place where I could enjoy my collection without having to physically access the media, and now a place that everybody can enjoy.
I do not advocate downloading these videos, although I can't stop you. I also encourage everybody to take a look at the artists represented here and go out and purchase the footage for themselves since most of it is available in DVD format.
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You do not need to put a real email address just something in email format of -@-.com I have no desire to collect email addresses but haven't found a way to switch it off yet.
