Today marks the eighth anniversary of the passing of Tony Wilson, the Manchester music icon and founder of Factory Records who died in 2007 at the age of 57.
To note the occasion and keep his memory and work alive, Wilson today has been honored in a new spoken-word track called “St. Anthony: An Ode To Anthony H Wilson”, featuring various figures who were close to him. Included on the song and in the video, made by Soup Collective filmed at the Sharp Project, are New Order’s Bernard Sumner, Stephen Morris, and Gillian Gilbert; as well as Iggy Pop, designer Peter Saville, the Fall’s Mark E. Smith, Rowetta and Shaun Ryder from the Happy Mondays, and actor Steve Coogan, who famously played Wilson in 24 Hour Party People.
“I first heard St. Anthony the day before our Jodrell Bank Gig in July 2013,” says Sumner in a press release. “I thought it sounded fucking great.”
The basis for the song is a poem written by Mancunian poet and lifelong Wilson fan Mike Garry, who brought it to music composer Joe Duddell. The backing music takes elements from New Order’s “Your Silent Face,” and the Wilson tribute will be released officially — complete with Saville artwork — this Friday. It will be available digitally, on CD, and on white 12-inch vinyl via Skinny Dog Records, with an Andrew Weatherall remix as the b-side. That same night, a launch party will be hosted at Granada Studios in Manchester, and proceeds from the event and the single’s sales will benefit the UK’s Christie Charitable Fund.
Watch “St. Anthony: An Ode To Anthony H Wilson” below…
The full list of St. Antony video contributors: Steve Coogan, Iggy Pop, Gillian Gilbert, Mike Garry, John Robb, Joe Duddell, Rowetta, Stephen Morris, Bernard Sumner, Elliot Rashman, Mike Pickering, Christopher Eccleston, Johnny Jay, Leroy Richardson, Terry Christian, Richard Madeley, Julie Hesmondhalgh, Shaun Ryder, Johnny Bramwell, Paul Morley, Mark Radcliffe, Larry Gott, Vini Reilly, Miranda Sawyer, Andrew Weatherall, John Cooper Clarke, Peter Saville, Philip Glass.