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Red Box is a British Pop Group active from the early 1980s to the early 1990s. It was founded by Simon Toulson-Clarke and Julian Close. They scored two UK Top Ten hits with the singles "Lean on Me (ah-li-ayo)" in 1985 and "For America" in 1986, both of which were included on their debut album The Circle & The Square.
Red Box returned briefly in 1990, by now essentially singer-songwriter Simon Toulson-Clarke with a third line-up of supporting players, with the following single "Train" and second album Motive more akin to solo releases.
Simon Toulson-Clarke formed his first band at age thirteen with school friend Paddy Talbot, playing covers of Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple as well as some self-penned material. Other early influences are cited as being Marc Bolan, Cream, Pink Floyd, Cat Stevens and particularly Buffy Sainte-Marie. On leaving school he moved to Middlesbrough and formed another band in the vein of New York Dolls.
In the late '70s he travelled south to study at The Polytechnic of Central London (now University of Westminster), where he formed a band with Bristolian Julian Close. Initially the band performed under the name Harlequins and comprised Toulson-Clarke (vocals/guitar) and Close (saxophone) together with Paddy Talbot (keyboards), Rob Legge (bass) and Martin Nickson (drums).
The band later took the name Red Box—after some deliberation—from a box left behind by the rock group Slade following a performance at college (and in which they had since been storing microphones). The name was favoured for its political (Red) connotations—Toulson-Clarke describes the band members as 'Student Activists'. He was also attracted to the notion of square (Box) being an old North American Indian term for 'white man' (circle being the term for 'man' before Europeans were encountered), a concept which would be explored further on the debut The Circle & The Square album in the song "Heart of the Sun", a line from which gave the album its title.
The group released its debut single "Chenko" on the Cherry Red label in 1983. Following this, the band slimmed down to a duo, and took on a more Synth Pop direction. Their second single "Saskatchewan" (a cover of the Buffy Sainte-Marie song) brought them to the attention of WEA, which signed the duo.
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