The Durutti Column
United Kingdom, 1978–now
Manchester project built around guitarist Vini Reilly, the first act Tony Wilson signed to Factory Records. Against everything post-punk was supposed to be, Reilly made delicate, delay-drenched instrumental music - fluid, melancholy guitar lines over Martin Hannett's electronics - and became a guitarist's guitarist without ever having a hit.
MusicRoots documents 7 artists who influenced The Durutti Column and 0 artists The Durutti Column influenced in turn. Every connection cites a published source.
Who influenced The Durutti Column?
- Oscar Peterson — Peterson is among the pianists Reilly names as his real influences, in place of any guitarist.
- Pete Johnson — Pete Johnson completes the boogie-woogie half of Reilly's stated piano ancestry.
- Benjamin Britten — Britten is the classical side of Reilly's formation - he studied piano stimulated by Tatum, Waller and Britten before ever taking up the guitar.
- Martin Hannett — Hannett built the electronic backing tracks that Reilly's guitar was laid over on the first Durutti Column album - the record's whole atmosphere is his.
- Art Tatum — Asked about the guitarists who shaped him, Reilly answered that his influences are not guitarists at all but pianists - Art Tatum first among them, whose cascading lines he transferred to the fretboard.
- Fats Waller — Waller was among the stride pianists Reilly grew up playing before he ever picked up a guitar at ten.
- Albert Ammons — Reilly names Albert Ammons among the old boogie-woogie pianists behind his playing - an unlikely ancestry for music this quiet, but his own account of it.