Richard Lloyd, the co-founding guitarist of Television, died yesterday, Saturday, November 7, at his home in Chattanooga, Tennessee, at 75. The cause was cholangiocarcinoma, a form of bile duct cancer diagnosed in March, and his wife Sheila and his dog Willie Mays were with him at the end. The full story of his death, his illness and the career behind it is in iimiTV’s report on Richard Lloyd dying at 75.
Sunday morning brought the second part of the story: the Richard Lloyd tributes. His own band posted its farewell, two guitarists who built their own work on what Television did put their debts on the record, and the overnight coverage settled one fact that yesterday’s news had only implied. Drummer Billy Ficca is now the only surviving member of the classic lineup that made Marquee Moon.
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Johnny Marr Leads The Richard Lloyd Tributes
The first word came from the band itself. Television posted on its X account on Saturday: “We are so very sad that Richard Lloyd has today passed away at the age of 75. Deepest condolences to Sheila and to all of his family and friends.”
The fullest tribute came from Johnny Marr, whose playing with The Smiths was shaped by Television’s guitar sound. Marr wrote on Instagram, in the tribute NME gathered on Sunday morning: “R.I.P Richard Lloyd. A seeker and finder and a true inspiration with and without the guitar. It was an honour to know him and a blessing to have been a fan. Thank you Richard. Carry on my friend.”
Lloyd Cole, who shares the surname and nothing else, heard the band live once and never forgot who was driving it. He posted on X: “I just heard. RIP Richard Lloyd. I only saw Television once, all those amazing riffs that drive the songs, Richard played them all.” Between them, Marr and Cole described the same division of labour listeners have argued about since 1977: Tom Verlaine wrote the shapes, and Lloyd played the riffs that made the songs move.
Marquee Moon, The Morning After
The record the tributes keep returning to is the title track of the 1977 debut. On the official audio below, Verlaine starts the repeating figure and Lloyd answers it, two guitars in separate channels trading lead and rhythm instead of stacking into a wall of chords. Lloyd takes the first solo after the second chorus. That interplay, not volume or speed, is what Marr and a generation of post-punk guitarists took from the band.
“Marquee Moon,” the title track of Television’s 1977 debut, on the band’s official Television – Topic channel.
Billy Ficca Is The Last One Standing
The morning-after coverage, including Ultimate Classic Rock’s report carried Sunday, states the settled fact plainly: Billy Ficca is now the only surviving member of the classic Television lineup that recorded Marquee Moon and its 1978 follow-up, Adventure. Verlaine died in 2023 at 73, and bassist Fred Smith died in February this year at 77. Three of the four men on that record have now died inside four years.
That lineup’s story starts in one room. Television were among the first bands to play CBGB, the Bowery club at 315 Bowery, after Lloyd helped talk owner Hilly Kristal into booking them in 1974. The Ramones, Blondie, Talking Heads and Patti Smith followed them through the same door, and the room became the centre of New York punk.
CBGB at 315 Bowery, New York, the room Television’s residency helped turn into the birthplace of New York punk. Photo via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.5.
What The Morning After Leaves Open
None of the overnight tributes, from the band, from Marr or from the outlets that gathered them, carried funeral or memorial details, and the family has announced none so far. Lloyd is survived by his wife, Sheila O’Keefe Lloyd, his son, Dylan, and his brother, Eric. What Sunday leaves instead is the work: nine solo albums from Alchemy in 1979 to The Countdown in 2018, the playing at the centre of Matthew Sweet’s Girlfriend, and a guitar language built with Verlaine that has been in circulation for 49 years.
Marr had the last word of the morning after, and it was a send-off rather than an obituary line: “Carry on my friend.” The solos on Marquee Moon are still being studied note for note, which is as close to carrying on as a guitarist’s work gets.
