Representative Albums: "Telegraph," "There's Never Been a Crowd Like This," "Barbarians"
Biography
Australian-born singer-songwriter Richard Davies formed the chamber-pop unit the Moles in Sydney in the late 1980s after growing disenchanted with studying law; concluding that he preferred composing poetry to writing essays for his class assignments, he soon began crafting his first songs. After finding some underground success in their native land as well as the U.S. and Britain, the Moles broke up around the beginning of 1993; Davies soon settled in New York City to begin a solo career, although in 1994 he released his solo debut, Instinct, under the Moles name. Through a mutual friendship with Sebadoh drummer Bob Fay, Davies joined forces with multi-instrumentalist and arranger Eric Matthews to form the duo Cardinal, which released their lush, symphonic self-titled debut to great acclaim in 1994. However, internal strife prompted the group to split soon after, and Davies began his solo career in earnest with 1996's baroque There's Never Been a Crowd Like This; on tour, he was backed by avowed fans the Flaming Lips. The superb Telegraph followed in 1998, and in 2000 Davies signed to the Kindercore label to issue his third solo LP, Barbarians. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide
Davies uses a broad Welsh accent for much of his work, but also occasionally uses received pronunciation and other accents. This has led to his playing a diversity of characters, (in addition to several Welsh stereotypes).
He appeared in several police television series, with a recurring role as Jim Sloan in Z Cars between 1962 and 1965, returning to the series playing different characters in 1968 and in its sequel Softly, Softly. He also appeared in Dixon of Dock Green several times, The Sweeney, and Van der Valk.
