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Richey Edwards: Guitarist and Lyricist with the Manic Street Preachers who Disappeared in 1995

Andy Gill, The Independent, 28 November 2008

WHEN MANIC Street Preachers' lyricist Richey Edwards disappeared from his room at the Embassy Hotel in London's Bayswater district on the night of 1 February 1995, he set in motion one of rock 'n' roll's most enduring mysteries. He had been due to fly with the band's guitarist and singer James Dean Bradfield to America the following day for promotional duties, and like the Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis, who took his own life on the eve of an American tour, he may have felt that the prospect of transatlantic success in some way compromised his artistic principles. But although his passport was found back at his apartment in Cardiff, and his car found abandoned a fortnight later at the Aust motorway services overlooking the River Severn, Edwards himself has never been seen since.

Total word count of piece: 1246

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