Mark Stanway (born 27 July 1954) is an English musician. He was the keyboard player for the
prog rock
Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. Initi ...
band
Magnum from 1980 until the end of 2016.
Career
Stanway first appeared with
Magnum on the 1980 recording of ''
Chase the Dragon'' (released in 1982) Stanway provided keyboards on every studio album release from 1980 until his departure in 2016 (19 studio albums)
In 1984, Stanway formed
Grand Slam
Grand Slam most often refers to:
* Grand Slam (tennis), one player or pair winning all four major annual tournaments, or the tournaments themselves
Grand Slam or Grand slam may also refer to:
Games and sports
* Grand slam, winning category te ...
with
Phil Lynott
Philip Parris Lynott (, ; 20 August 1949 – 4 January 1986) was an Irish singer, bassist, and songwriter. His most commercially successful group was Thin Lizzy, of which he was a founding member, the principal songwriter, lead vocalist and ba ...
after a Lynott solo tour in Sweden in mid 1983, this band was with Lynott on bass, Stanway on keyboards, John Sykes on guitar, Brian Downey on drums and Doish Nagle on rhythm guitar, which later evolved into Grand Slam. Sykes later left to join
Whitesnake
Whitesnake are an English hard rock band formed in London in 1978. The group was originally put together as the backing band for singer David Coverdale, who had recently left Deep Purple. Though the band quickly developed into their own entit ...
and was replaced by Laurence Archer upon Stanway's recommendation. In 2016, Stanway reformed Grand Slam for a Sweden Rock Festival performance with Micky Barker (ex Magnum) on drums, Neil Murray on bass, Laurence Archer on guitar and Stefan Berggren on vocals. During this career, Stanway has performed and or recorded with many notable artists over the years including Robert Plant, Roy Wood, M3 Classic Whitesnake, featuring original Whitesnake members
Micky Moody
Michael Joseph "Micky" Moody (born 30 August 1950) is an English guitarist, and a former member of the rock bands Juicy Lucy and Whitesnake. He was also a founder-member of Snafu. Together with his former Whitesnake colleague Bernie Marsden ...
,
Bernie Marsden
Bernard John Marsden (born 7 May 1951) is an English rock and blues guitarist. He is primarily known for his work with Whitesnake, having written or co-written with David Coverdale many of the group's hit songs, such as "Fool for Your Loving", ...
and
Neil Murray, Swiss Star Bastian Baker, Jimmy Copley, Manfred Mann's Earthband, The Quireboys, The Dogs D'amour, Mississippi blues singer Lisa Mills, Karl Wayne, Junior Giscombe, Spike Gray, Simon Kirke, Luke Morley, and The Sweden Rock Symphony Orchestra.
Stanway played keyboards on Magnum's successful ''
On a Storyteller's Night
''On a Storyteller's Night'' is the fifth studio album by the English rock band Magnum, released on 13 May 1985 on FM Records in the UK and on Polydor Records in Germany.
The album is widely considered to be Magnum's breakthrough album, and re ...
'' album. Their success continued the following year with the
Roger Taylor Roger Taylor may refer to:
*Roger Taylor (Queen drummer) (born 1949), drummer for Queen
*Roger Taylor (Duran Duran drummer) (born 1960), drummer for Duran Duran
*Roger Taylor (author), author of epic fantasy Hawklan series
*Roger Taylor (college pr ...
produced ''
Vigilante
Vigilantism () is the act of preventing, investigating and punishing perceived offenses and crimes without Right, legal authority.
A vigilante (from Spanish, Italian and Portuguese “vigilante”, which means "sentinel" or "watcher") is a pers ...
'' in 1986, the top 5 album ''
Wings of Heaven
''Wings of Heaven'' is the seventh studio album by the English rock band Magnum, released in 1988.
The original choice of producers for ''Wings of Heaven'' was Roger Taylor and Dave Richards, who had produced ''Vigilante''. This was not real ...
'' in 1988, and the
Keith Olsen
Keith Alan Olsen (May 12, 1945 – March 9, 2020) was an American record producer and sound engineer, who worked with Magnum, Rick Springfield, Fleetwood Mac, Ozzy Osbourne, the Grateful Dead, Whitesnake, Pat Benatar, Heart, Santana, Saga, ...
produced ''
Goodnight L.A.
''Goodnight L.A.'' is the eighth studio album by the English rock band Magnum, released in 1990 by Polydor.
Most of the material was already written and arranged, at least in demo form, and was taken to Los Angeles and Vancouver to find an Ame ...
'' which reached No. 9 in the
UK Albums Chart
The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts C ...
in 1990.
On 9 December 2016, Stanway announced that he has left Magnum, mid-way through their five date Divine Lies Winter Tour. He cited "irrevocable circumstances".
.
Since his departure from Magnum, he has performed with the Sweden Rock Symphony Orchestra in 2017 and embarked on a series of 'An Intimate Evening With' shows and, in 2018, Stanway formed a new band, Kingdom of Madness, to perform Magnum songs from 1976 to 1994. This seven piece band features Stanway, former Magnum drummer Micky Barker (1985–95), former Magnum keyboard and flautist Richard Bailey (1973–74, 1976–80), vocalist and percussionist Mo Birch (UB40, Culture Club and Magnum), guitarist Laurence Archer (Stampede, Grandslam & UFO and Magnum in 1984), bassist Neil Murray (Whitesnake, Black Sabbath amongst many more) and vocalist Chris Ousey (Heartland & Snakecharmer). In July 2019, Murray was amicably replaced by Brian Badhams (ex Rainmaker, Steve Gibbons Band, Alaska, and continues to perform with Ellie Brooks).
Discography
Magnum
References
External links
*
Kingdom of Madness website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stanway, Mark
1954 births
Living people
English rock keyboardists
People from Sutton Coldfield
Magnum (band) members
Grand Slam (band) members
The Company of Snakes members