Tom Verlaine, singer and guitarist for seminal art-punk band Television, dies at 73

As leader of Television, Tom Verlaine made two of rock’s most acclaimed albums. (Kerstin Rodgers / Redferns)

Tom Verlaine, the singer and guitarist who fronted the unique, ambitious and oblique New York band Television, with whom he made two of rock’s most acclaimed albums, died Saturday. He was 73.

Verlaine’s death was confirmed to The Times by his former manager, John Telfer, who stated that he died after “a brief illness.”

Jimmy Rip, longtime guitarist with Verlaine and later iterations of Television, wrote on Instagram, “At the end, he was surrounded by love and passed peacefully with the hands of myself and four more of his nearest and dearest friends on him.

“The personal loss, for me, is absolutely devastating. The loss, to the world, of this most innovative, imitated and iconic artist is incalculable.”

Although Television first attracted attention at the New York punk rock club CBGB, Verlaine wasn’t a fan of punk, which he described as “just amped-up bubblegum with angrier lyrics.” Among other things, punk bands eschewed solos, which Verlaine and fellow guitarist Richard Lloyd did not. In 2012, Spin magazine placed Verlaine and Lloyd seventh on a list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time, likening their soloing to the Grateful Dead; Mojo magazine ranked Verlaine 34th on a similar list (one place ahead of Jerry Garcia), and Rolling Stone slotted him at 90.

Television in 1978: from left, Billy Ficca, Richard Lloyd, Tom Verlaine and Fred Smith. (Lynn Goldsmith/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)

The first two Television albums — “Marquee Moon,” released in 1977, and “Adventure,” a year later — were enough to cement the band’s enduring legend. But the records didn’t sell and the band broke up, reuniting for a third album, called “Television,” in 1992 before disappearing again. They toured sporadically, even after Lloyd left in 2007, frustrated at Verlaine’s unwillingness to record new music.

Television’s music introduced ideas that hung around rock music for decades. Subsequent generations of musicians seemed to base their styles on one song or even part of one; the bridge to the stupendous 10-minute song “Marquee Moon” anticipates much of Sonic Youth’s output, and R.E.M.’s first decade seemed to spring from the rippling arpeggios in “Days,” from “Adventure.”

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Tom Verlaine performs in 2015. (Jordi Vidal / Redferns via Getty Images)

But Verlaine himself seemed loathe to pursue the explosive, careening music that brought him renown. As a solo artist, he released nine studio albums, the last of which came out in 2006. That year, when a reporter asked him to describe his career, Verlaine said slyly, “Struggling not to have a professional career.”

Verlaine was passionate about harmonically complex music, especially jazz saxophonists John Coltrane and Albert Ayler, the classical compositions of Henryk Gorecki and Krzysztof Penderecki, and film composers Bernard Herrmann and Henry Mancini, as well as literature, especially the French Symbolists of the late 1800s.

Born Tom Miller in Delaware, he renamed himself after the Symbolist poet Paul Verlaine.

A complete obituary will follow.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.