Bryan Ferry and Phil Manzanera before the band recorded its first album (early Peel Sessions for the UK's BBC Radio 1 feature O'List's playing). Roxy Music's first hit "Virginia Plain" made the UK top 5 in 1972, and was followed up with several hit singles and albums, with Ferry as their lead vocalist and instrumentalist (he taught himself the piano in his mid-twenties) and Eno contributing synthesiser backing. After their second album, Brian Eno left Roxy Music, leaving Ferry its undisputed leader. Ferry started a parallel solo career in 1973, initially performing cover versions of old standards on albums such as "These
Hit Scene studios. The Avengers appeared in-person on the first national episode on 17 May 1969, promoting their latest EMI single "Twiddle-E-Dee", composed by Terry Britten. Unlike "GTK", in-house performances were mostly mimed to pre-recorded music. This may have played a part in "Hit Scene"'s demise, because the Musicians' Union and Actors Equity decided on 1 November 1972 to ban all mimed performances on Australian television. "Hit Scene" was recorded in monochrome at the ABC's Ripponlea television studios in the Melbourne suburb of Elsternwick. Early episodes were produced by Bernard Terry, and directed by Roger Prior, with Alan Morris as executive producer.