The Smiths were an English rock band formed in Manchester in 1982, composed of Morrissey (vocals), Johnny Marr (guitar), Andy Rourke (bass) and Mike Joyce (drums).

[19] He was replaced by the bass player Dale Hibbert, who worked at Manchester's Decibel Studios, where Marr had met him while recording Freak Party's demo.

[20] Aided by drummer Simon Wolstencroft, whom Marr had worked with in Freak Party, the band recorded both "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle" and "Suffer Little Children".

[23] In October 1982, the Smiths gave their first public performance as a support act for Blue Rondo à la Turk during a student music and fashion show, "An Evening of Pure Pleasure", at Manchester's Ritz.

[31] The band continued to practice, this time at the upstairs of the Portland Street Crazy Face Clothing company, a space secured by their new manager Joe Moss.

[41] Travis brought in Troy Tate of the Teardrop Explodes, and under his supervision the band recorded their debut album, at the Elephant Studios in Wapping, East London.

[44] Aided by praise from the music press and a series of studio sessions for Peel and David Jensen at BBC Radio 1, the Smiths began to build a dedicated fanbase.

[47] "Reel Around the Fountain" and "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle" met with controversy, with some tabloid newspapers alleging the songs were suggestive of paedophilia, a claim strongly denied by the group.

It was more strident and political than its predecessor, including the pro-vegetarian title track (Morrissey forbade the rest of the group from being photographed eating meat), the light-hearted republicanism of "Nowhere Fast", and the anti-corporal punishment "The Headmaster Ritual" and "Barbarism Begins at Home".

The band had also grown more diverse musically, with Marr adding rockabilly riffs to "Rusholme Ruffians" and Rourke playing a funk bass solo on "Barbarism Begins at Home".

[47] A legal dispute with Rough Trade had delayed the album by almost seven months (it had been completed in November 1985), and Marr was beginning to feel the stress of the band's exhausting touring and recording schedule.

The times were personified in their frontman: rejecting all taints of rock n' roll machismo, he played up the social awkwardness of the misfit and the outsider, his gently haunting vocals whooping suddenly upward into a falsetto, clothed in outsize women's shirts, sporting National Health specs or a huge Johnny Ray-style hearing aid.

This charming young man was, in the vernacular of the time, the very antithesis of a 'rockist' – always knowingly closer to the gentle ironicist Alan Bennett, or self-lacerating diarist Kenneth Williams, than a licentious Mick Jagger or a drugged-out Jim Morrison."

[67] The band recorded material with him which was never completed, including an early version of "Bengali in Platforms", later released on Morrissey's debut solo album, Viva Hate (1988).

[88] In November 2005, Joyce told Marc Riley on BBC Radio 6 Music that financial hardship had reduced him to selling rare Smiths recordings on eBay.

[90] Following the group's split, Morrissey began work on a solo recording, collaborating with producer Stephen Street and fellow Mancunian Vini Reilly, guitarist for the Durutti Column.

He has worked as a session musician and writing collaborator with artists including the Pretenders, Bryan Ferry, Pet Shop Boys, Billy Bragg, Black Grape, Talking Heads, Modest Mouse, Crowded House and Beck.

In 2006, he began work with Modest Mouse's Isaac Brock on songs that eventually featured on the band's 2007 release, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank.

In January 2008, it was reported that Marr had taken part in a week-long songwriting session at Moolah Rouge recording studio in Stockport with Wakefield indie group the Cribs.

[94] In the same year they recorded demos with Paul Arthurs (Oasis), Aziz Ibrahim and Rowetta Idah (Happy Mondays) under the name Moondog One, but the project went no further.

[123] Marr's other favourite guitarists are James Williamson of the Stooges, Rory Gallagher, Pete Townshend of the Who, Jimi Hendrix, Marc Bolan of T. Rex, Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, and John McGeoch of Magazine and Siouxsie and the Banshees.

[127] Marr used "arpeggiated chords, open-string licks and unusual progressions" and his style "combined the chime of '60s jangle-pop bands with the pared-down musicality of players like Nile Rodgers and Keith Richards.

[130] Morrissey's songwriting was influenced by punk rock and post-punk bands such as New York Dolls, the Cramps, the Specials and the Cult, along with 1960s girl groups and singers such as Dusty Springfield, Sandie Shaw, Marianne Faithfull and Timi Yuro.

Morrissey's lyrics, while superficially depressing, were often full of mordant humour; John Peel remarked that the Smiths were one of the few bands capable of making him laugh out loud.

[citation needed] Influenced by his childhood interest in the social realism of 1960s "kitchen sink" television plays, Morrissey wrote about ordinary people and their experiences with despair, rejection and death.

While "songs such as 'Still Ill' sealed his role as spokesman for disaffected youth", Morrissey's "manic-depressive rants" and his "'woe-is-me' posture inspired some hostile critics to dismiss the Smiths as 'miserabilists.

'"[5] Julian Stringer characterised the Smiths as "one of Britain's most overtly political groups",[131] while in his study of their work, Andrew Warnes termed them "the most anti-capitalist of bands".

He continued: "As the first indie outsiders to achieve mainstream success on their own terms (their second album proper, 1985's Meat Is Murder, made Number 1 in the UK), they elevated rock's standard four-piece formula to new heights of magic and poetry.

"[149] The "Britpop movement pre-empted by the Stone Roses and spearheaded by groups like Oasis, Suede and Blur drew heavily from Morrissey's portrayal of and nostalgia for a bleak urban England of the past.

The Guardian gave the performances positive reviews, suggesting they offered fans a way to enjoy the Smiths without the "moral queasiness" of Morrissey, who had become a controversial figure in the preceding years.