Richard Lloyd, the guitarist who helped make Television’s Marquee Moon a landmark, dies at 75

Richard Lloyd, the guitarist whose lines wound around Tom Verlaine’s on Television’s 1977 album Marquee Moon, has died. He was 75.

His family said he died early on Saturday, 7 November, at his home in Chattanooga, Tennessee, with his wife Sheila and his dog, Willie Mays, beside him. He had been diagnosed in March with cholangiocarcinoma, a rare cancer of the bile ducts.

A former representative of the band described him simply: “He was a musician’s musician.”

Why did Television matter so much?

Television came out of New York’s emerging punk scene and played regularly at CBGB, but built its songs differently: long, clean and intricate, around two guitars that answered each other rather than doubling up.

Lloyd joined in 1973, when Verlaine, bassist Richard Hell and drummer Billy Ficca turned their earlier band, the Neon Boys, into Television and needed a second guitarist. The partnership between Lloyd and Verlaine, one often taking the melody while the other cut across it, became the band’s signature.

Marquee Moon is widely regarded as a landmark album, and it helped make Television one of the most influential bands to come out of that scene.

What came after?

Television released a second album, Adventure, in 1978, then split later that year. Lloyd started a solo career with Alchemy in 1979 and followed it with Field of Fire in 1986 and Real Time in 1987.

He also worked as a session guitarist, most notably on Matthew Sweet’s Girlfriend (1991), Altered Beast (1993) and 100% Fun (1995).

Television re-formed in the early 1990s and released a self-titled album in 1992. Lloyd kept playing reunion shows with the band until he left in 2007. His final solo album, The Countdown, came out in 2018.

How did his illness unfold?

In August, his friend and bandmate Sean Seymour set up an online fundraiser to cover Lloyd’s medical bills. It said he had several tumours on his liver, one too close to a major blood vessel to be removed surgically, and that the illness had stopped him performing and touring, which had been a major source of his income.

His wife, Sheila O’Keefe Lloyd, cared for him through the illness.

What does his death mean for the band’s story?

Verlaine died in January 2023 at 73. With Lloyd gone, the two guitarists who defined Television’s sound have both died within four years of each other.

For anyone coming to the band now, Marquee Moon is the place to start: it is the record on which the partnership between Lloyd and Verlaine is heard at its fullest.