Mick Wayne

UK guitarist, born 1945, Kingston upon Hull - died 26 June 1994. Mick Wayne's first group was The Outsiders, with Jimmy Page on guitar. After recording one single for Decca Records in 1965, the Outsiders broke up the following year at which point Wayne joined Hull musicians The Hullaballoos, briefly before they too broke up. He returned to London and next joined the Bunch of Fives during 1966 and this band evolved into The Tickle. After the break-up of the Tickle, Mick Wayne formed Junior's Eyes in early 1968, which recorded a debut single with the help of pianist Rick Wakeman and producer Tony Visconti and an album Battersea Power Station, released in June 1969. That same month, Mick Wayne and Rick Wakeman were among the guest musicians who recorded David Bowie's breakthrough hit "Space Oddity". For the follow-up Space Oddity album recorded between June and September 1969, Bowie was backed by a new line-up of Junior's Eyes comprising Mick Wayne (guitar), John 'Honk' Lodge (bass), John Cambridge (drums) and Tim Renwick (guitar, flute, recorder). Wayne had also helped record James Taylor's debut album between July and October 1968. Mick Wayne left for the US after Junior's Eyes to back Joe Cocker, and spent a few years doing session work there before returning to London and joining a 1972 Steve Peregrin Took recording session along with Pink Fairies rhythm section Duncan Sanderson and Russell Hunter. Consequently, Wayne, Sanderson and Hunter formed a new incarnation of the Pink Fairies, releasing the single "Well, Well, Well" / "Hold On", as well as doing a radio session for BBC Radio One. However Sanderson and Hunter became unhappy with the musical direction Wayne was taking the band in, and they convinced Larry Wallis to join the group as a second guitarist and shortly afterwards sacked Wayne. Wayne later formed pub-rock bands Juniors and Ozo in the mid-1970s before retiring from music. He was about to record a comeback solo album when he died in a fire at his producer's house in 1994.