Boz Burrell

King Crimson has produced enough alumni, amid its myriad membership changes, break-ups, and re-assemblies over the decades to fill a decent sized symphony orchestra. Robert Fripp may be the Crimson mastermind, and Greg Lake its most familiar ex-member as a singer, but singer bassist Boz Burrell is right up there with Lake as the most successful ex-member. Born Raymond Burrell and known simply as Boz for much of his pre-1970's career, he became a progressive rock hero as a member of Crimson and one of the most famous bassists in the world as a founding member of Bad Company. For a decade before any of that, however, he paid his dues, working in a succession of promising but unsuccessful '60s bands as a vocalist, mostly in a rock and white British soul idiom.

In 1963, Boz was singing with a band called the Tea Time Four, whose line-up included Ian McLagan, later of the Small Faces. They evolved into the Boz People, before he exited for the Sidewinders, a quartet whose line-up included Mark Charig, the future cornet player on King Crimson's Lizard, Islands, and Red albums, and Soft Machine alumnus John Marshall. Burrell subsequently turned up in Feel For Soul, which lasted thru 1968. That same year, he recorded a cover of Bob Dylan's "Down In The Flood" for EMI's Columbia label (credited simply to "Boz")--the track is sung and played in a slightly archaic folk-rock mode, backed by a band that included Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Paice, and Jon Lord-moonlighting from the early Deep Purple-and ex-Outlaw Chas Hodges. It couldn't have sounded much different from his next recording venture.

In 1971, Boz got his break into the big time when he joined King Crimson, an occasion for which he learned to play bass from Robert Fripp. This version of Crimson's line-up dissolved at the beginning of 1972, but not before they'd toured the world and built a bigger following than any of the members (save Fripp) had ever played to before. Burrell, along with drummer Ian Wallace and saxman Mel Collins, made a jump to Snape, an outfit organized around Alexis Korner and Pete Thorup. Snape only lasted until the end of 1972, and then Burrell made the smartest move (financially, at least) of his entire career, becoming a founding member of Bad Company. Bad Company sold tens of millions of records and were the quintessential mid-1970's hard-rock supergroup-they were loud and they could play a good riff for all it was worth, and Burrell's bass (Fripp had taught him well) shared the rhythm section chores with Simon Kirke across five continents-he also wrote the occasional song, such as "Gone Gone Gone" from the 1979 Desolation Angels album. Burrell was back in Bad Company for a second go-around in the late 1980's with Brian Howe on vocals, but wasn't aboard for two subsequent mid-1990's tours by the reformed band. In the 1990's, Burrell has played on Alvin Lee's Best of British Blues '96 Tour, which also included Eric Burdon.

In 1999, he toured with Scottish blues singer Tam White, and during the summer of that year, he participated in a reunion of the original Bad Company for the first time in 20 years. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide