A Frenzied Southern Dream: When Roy Wood Drove British Glam to the Edge of Madness
In 1973, Roy Wood — the wild-haired polymath who had already founded both The Move and Electric Light Orchestra — unleashed his most unrestrained vision yet through Wizzard’s debut album, Wizzard Brew. Buried amid its sprawling, genre-shattering tracks was “Buffalo Station – Get On Down to Memphis”, a delirious collision of British eccentricity and American rhythm, a song that distilled the album’s chaotic brilliance into seven and a half minutes of joyful lunacy. Though it never troubled the singles charts, it became emblematic of Wood’s boundless ambition — a piece that bridged the gap between rock’s glitter-streaked theatrics and the earthy pulse of Memphis soul.
By 1973, the British glam explosion was in full tilt — T. Rex, Slade, and Bowie had made sequins and swagger a new kind of religion. Yet Roy Wood, ever the contrarian craftsman, seemed determined to push glam beyond fashion and into something almost orchestral, unhinged, and kaleidoscopic. “Buffalo Station – Get On Down to Memphis” stands as a perfect testament to that vision. It opens with the roar of horns, a thumping rhythm section, and Wood’s uncontainable energy, careening between structured swing and anarchic free jazz. There’s a sense that the song is always just about to spin off its axis — but that’s precisely where its genius lies.
Lyrically, it’s a fever dream of Americana seen through the cracked mirror of a British imagination. The title itself — “Buffalo Station” leading to “Memphis” — evokes a railroad journey through the mythic South, a landscape where blues, R&B, and early rock ’n’ roll first found their voice. Wood isn’t imitating American music so much as detonating it and reassembling the fragments into something wildly his own. Beneath the manic tempo and the blaring horns, you can hear a deep affection for the roots of rock: Sun Studios, Stax, the ghosts of rhythm & blues. Yet this isn’t nostalgia — it’s a riotous celebration of motion, of sound, of the restless urge to “get on down” and escape the stasis of polite pop.
In many ways, “Buffalo Station – Get On Down to Memphis” encapsulates the essence of Wizzard Brew itself: a mad scientist’s experiment in musical overload. Wood layered everything — saxophones, fuzzed-out guitars, cellos, even multiple drum kits — until the result became something closer to symphonic mayhem than traditional rock. Critics were divided: some hailed it as visionary, others dismissed it as self-indulgent chaos. But fifty years later, it’s precisely that audacious lack of restraint that makes the song endure. It sounds like nothing else from its era — or any era, really — a brilliant, brassy detour into the heart of rock’s delirious imagination.
In “Buffalo Station – Get On Down to Memphis,” Roy Wood wasn’t just revisiting rock’s origins; he was daring it to evolve. Amid the horns, the grit, and the grinning madness, you can almost hear the train he’s imagining — not merely bound for Memphis, but hurtling toward some fantastical junction where art rock, soul, and glam would finally collide in one glorious crash.