Talk about opposites attract.
May 16, 1986: introvert King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp married extrovert telly-punk personality Toyah Willcox.
Incidentally, their betrothal was on Fripp’s 40th birthday, which makes him three quarters of a century and still going strong, a bit like their marriage.
Most people become less of themselves, perhaps almost unrecognisable, as they age, but the axe legend looks more and more like Robert Fripp with each passing day.
Most would have said the unlikely union was doomed from the beginning, but the couple still seem blissfully happy together, even after lockdown.
Recently embroiled in a royalties issue with the Bowie estate over his featured-artist-or-not-featured-artist contributions to Bowie’s “Heroes”, Fripp has often come across as a stern and studious type. Yet since Covid-19, he and the missus have become social media ‘sensations’ with their weekly Sunday Lockdown Lunch videos filmed at their plush riverside abode in Pershore, often consisting of fantastically jovial performances of songs one would never expect Fripp to even consider worthy of his acknowledgment.
Britney? Billy Idol? Metallica? They’re all there… and The Rolling Stones. All of them entertainingly offered with more than a splash of Worcestershire sauce.
They’ve even had a go at “Heroes”, which makes this clip doubly ironic.
Now entering her age-defying 64th year herself, the recently boobically enhanced Toyah and I once shared a lipo surgeon in Knightsbridge, though not at the same time.
Slightly more on-topic, last year I discovered a hardly pristine piece of A4 that dates from a stuffy dressing room at the Clapham Grand in July 1996, which happened to be when I interviewed the Brum One about Dame David, with a view to putting together a 50th birthday Bowie publication which sadly never materialised.
Toyah was about to hit the stage at the Grand that night, but as a parting gift decided to scribble down her fave Dave raves, though in the melée she forgot to sign it.
A quarter century later here it bloody well is. But why did it take so long to publish? Let’s just say it’s a mythtery.
Happy birthdays you two.
Steve Pafford
