40 Year Itch: That Indescribable Sound Of Toyah
On June 6, 1980 Toyah released The Blue Meaning, an album that would top the UK Indie charts. Fronted by the multi-color haired Toyah Willcox, who played Monkey in 1979’s The Who album-inspired Quadrophenia and acted beside Kate Hepburn, the band had already scored a UK#1 Indie single with “Victims Of The Riddle”and expectations were big.
The album, now considered a cult classic by some, peaked at UK#40 on the mainstream album charts. The band would soon break up.
The articles I’ve read about Toyah Willcox from that time don’t reveal much, but in 2017, she was interviewed by BBC Radio for their Inheritance Tracks segment and we learned she had strict parents who, when she was very young, made sure she was in bed by 6:30 at night, not to be seen again until 7 AM the next day. Her mother picked out her clothes. She was dyslexic, number-blind and club-footed, and she determined to be seen and heard:
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