Bill Legend

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Bill Legend (born William Fifield in Barking, Essex, May 8, 1944) was the drummer for glam rock band T. Rex during their most successful period.

One of three children, Legend worked as a commercial artist after leaving school while playing the drums for a variety of bands. He was drumming under his real name for a group called Legend when Marc Bolan, the man behind the new-found success of T. Rex, spotted him and asked producer Tony Visconti to approach him.

Legend agreed to give it a try and immediately bought a number of the old T. Rex albums from their days as Tyrannosaurus Rex in order to familiarise himself with Bolan's previous work. At the time, T. Rex had enjoyed their first hit singles with Ride A White Swan and Hot Love. Bolan and his percussionist Mickey Finn had already recruited a bassist in Steve Currie but still needed a drummer to complete the rhythm section of their new electric direction. Finn had been forced to mime playing the drums on Top Of The Pops when Hot Love was at No.1.

He got his stage name from Bolan, who suggested the new name because of the name of the band he was playing in.

Legend played drums for T. Rex until 1973, when the band began to disintegrate after the hits dried up. They had enjoyed four UK No.1 singles and four UK No.2 singles in a three year period. Legend reverted to session drumming afterwards.

Bolan (in 1977) and Currie (1981) both died in car crashes, and Finn succumbed to illness in 2003. Legend is therefore the only member of the halcyon-era T. Rex who is still alive.

As of 2006, Legend is the only surviving member of the 1970-1973 T. Rex lineup. He has seven children and lives in Chelmsford, Essex.

T. Rex
Marc BolanMickey FinnSteve CurrieBill Legend
Steve Peregrin Took • Miller Anderson • Herbie FlowersJack GreenGloria Jones • Davy Lutton • Tony NewmanDino Dines
Discography
As Tyrannosaurus Rex: My People Were Fair and Had Sky in Their Hair... But Now They're Content to Wear Stars on Their Brows | Prophets, Seers & Sages – The Angels of the Ages | Unicorn | A Beard of Stars
As T. Rex: T. Rex | Electric Warrior | Bolan Boogie | The Slider | Tanx | Zinc Alloy and the Hidden Riders of Tomorrow | Light of Love | Bolan's Zip Gun | Futuristic Dragon | Dandy in the Underworld
Related articles
John's ChildrenBorn to BoogieBlackhill EnterprisesBolan's Rock ShrineMarc (TV series)Mickey Finn's T. Rex
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