Rick Parfitt 1948 – 2016

With the death of Status Quo’s exuberant rhythm man, the British rock scene is a drabber place. We look back on a life lived at full-throttle…

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In a year when some of rock’s brightest stars were cruelly snuffed out, the death of Rick Parfitt on 24 December from sepsis was a bitter sting in the tail. The Status Quo guitarist was not a visionary like Bowie, nor a virtuoso like Prince, but the chunky chug of his rhythm work on the band’s 60-plus UK hit singles was among the most exuberant sounds in rock ’n’ roll, while his blokey bonhomie made him one of the scene’s best-loved figures. “It’s hard to find words,” tweeted Brian May. “You truly rocked our world.”

Born 12 October 1948, and raised on the Elmbridge council estate in Woking, Richard John Parfitt was a self-described “typical naughty boy” whose mayhem often saw him thrashed by his insurance salesman father with a belt. Trying a guitar at 11, he was surprised to discover a natural talent (“I don’t know where that musical ability came from”), and would later recall the satisfaction, in 1965, of showering his disapproving parents with bank notes after early gigs on the British holiday camp circuit started to pay off. “It was about four in the morning and I woke them up and said, ‘Oi, look at this,’ then threw the money up in the air.”