Rick Parfitt

Richard John Parfitt OBE 12 October 1948 24 December 2016 was an English musician best known as a rhythm guitarist singer and songwriter with rock band Status Quo Parfitt began his career in the early 1960s playing in pubs and holiday camps He joined Status Quo in 1967 when they were looking for an additional singer He wrote songs for the band and remained with them for 49 years He occasionally guested with other bands and recorded an unreleased solo album in 1985 In 2016 Parfitt temporarily retired from touring with the band due to ill health and died in December of that year His only solo album Over and Out was released posthumously in 2018 Richard John Parfitt was born in Woking Surrey on 12 October 1948 His father Richard was an insurance salesman who was a drinker and a gambler and his mother Lillian worked in cake shops He described his upbringing as wonderful and described his childhoodself as a typical naughty boy He first started to learn to play the guitar at the age of 11 In 1963 Parfitt was playing guitar and singing in The Prince of Wales Feathers a pub on Warren Street in Camden London when his father was approached by an agent from Sunshine Holiday Camp on Hayling Island who gave Parfitt a performing job At the camp Parfitt joined Jean and Gloria Harrison performing as the double act The Harrison Twins to form a cabaret trio called The Highlights Following the season the Harrison Twins manager Joe Cohen who had been one of the Keystone Cops arranged for The Highlights to perform at Butlins in Minehead Here Parfitt met future Status Quo partner Francis Rossi who was playing with Alan Lancaster and John Coghlan in a band called The Spectres soon to be renamed Traffic Jam a forerunner to Status Quo I remember wandering over there one afternoon for the first time and watching them rehearse Parfitt recalled I may still have been in my silver lamé suit which I used to wear all the time They were playing Chuck Berrys Bye Bye Johnny and it sounded absolutely fantastic After Parfitt befriended the band their manager Pat Barlow invited him to join as they needed another singer In 1967 Traffic Jam changed their name to The Status Quo they soon dropped the definite article and later still would often be known simply as Quo beginning Parfitts almost 50year career in the band Early successes came with the Rossipenned hit Pictures of Matchstick Men The single became the groups only Top 40 hit in the United States peaking at number twelve on the Billboard Hot 100 Though the followup was the unsuccessful single Black Veils of Melancholy they had a hit again the same year with a Marty Wilde and Ronnie Scott song Ice in the Sun which climbed to number eight The bands 1972 album Piledriver which reached number 5 spent a total of 37 weeks on the UK Albums Chart Source Article Rick Parfitt from Wikipedia in English licensed under CCBYSA 30