Portrait of Phil Manzanera

Birthday profile

Phil Manzanera

British guitarist

Born
January 31, 1951
Age in 2026
75
Zodiac sign
Aquarius
Birth year
1951

About Phil Manzanera

Phillip Geoffrey Targett-Adams (born 31 January 1951), known professionally as Phil Manzanera, is an English musician, songwriter and record producer. He is the lead guitarist with Roxy Music, and was the lead guitarist with 801 and Quiet Sun. In 2006, Manzanera co-produced David Gilmour's album On an Island, and played in Gilmour's band for tours in Europe and North America. == Early life == Manzanera was born on 31 January 1951 in London, England, to a Colombian mother (née Manzanera) and an English father, who worked for British Overseas Airways Corporation. He spent most of his childhood in different parts of the Americas, including Hawaii, Venezuela, Colombia, and Cuba. It was in Havana, Cuba, living under Batista, that the young Manzanera, aged six, encountered his first guitar, a Spanish guitar owned by his mother. His earliest musical accomplishments were Cuban folk songs inspired by the Cuban Revolution. In Venezuela, the eight-year-old Manzanera started experimenting with the sounds of the electric guitar. During his teenage years he was absorbing the twin influences of 1960s rock and roll and Latin American rhythms of merengue, cumbia, and particularly the boleros of the Mexican Armando Manzanero. In his late teens Manzanera – then a boarder at Dulwich College in south east London, where his brother was also a pupil – formed a series of school bands with his friends Bill MacCormick, later a member of Matching Mole, 801 and Random Hold, MacCormick's brother Ian (better known as music writer Ian MacDonald) and drummer Charles Hayward, later of This Heat and Camberwell Now.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Career and life highlights

Phil Manzanera timeline

  1. Phillip Geoffrey Targett-Adams (born 31 January 1951), known professionally as Phil Manzanera, is an English musician, songwriter and record producer.
  2. After David O'List left the group in early 1972 (before the group had made any commercially issued recordings), Manzanera was invited to replace O'List as Roxy Music's guitarist.
  3. In 2006, Manzanera co-produced David Gilmour's album On an Island, and played in Gilmour's band for tours in Europe and North America.

The world when Phil Manzanera was born

Phil Manzanera was born in 1951. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1951

  • #1 song"Too Young" – Nat King Cole
  • Top movieAn American in Paris
  • Top TV showI Love Lucy
  • Best-selling bookThe Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentBobby Thomson's "Shot Heard Round the World"
  • Top headlineI Love Lucy premieres and becomes a cultural phenomenon
  • Technology milestoneFirst commercial computer (UNIVAC I) delivered
  • Defining fadI Love Lucy
  • Notable inventionSuper Glue
  • World population2.59 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderHarry S. Truman
  • Sports championNew York Yankees (World Series)
  • Also wonRochester Royals (NBA)
  • U.S. population154.0M

1951 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Phil Manzanera's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19512026
Gas$0.27$3.45/gal
Average home$8,800$435,000
Average income$5,500$67,500
Minimum wage$0.75$7.25/hr (federal)
Movie ticket$0.53$11.95
Postage stamp$0.03$0.73
Population154.0M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, MusicBrainz. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.