Uli Jon Roth

In the early 1970s, Roth formed a band called Dawn Road. In 1973 he temporarily joined
Scorpions, replacing guitarist Michael Schenker (brother of Scorpions guitarist Rudolf)
who had left to join UFO. Michael had a reputation as a highly skilled technical player;
Scorpions disbanded after he left the group. The "new" Scorpions were, in effect, a
merger between the four members of Dawn Road, (Uli Jon Roth, Achim Kirschning,
Francis Buchholz, Jürgen Rosenthal) and the two remaining Scorpions members, Rudolf
Schenker and Klaus Meine.[1] During his tenure as lead guitarist and a main songwriter
for the Scorpions, the band released five very influential records, including the live album
Tokyo Tapes, which sold nearly one million copies and went gold in several countries.

Some later Scorpions releases with Roth began to exhibit a stylistic split in songwriting.
Roth-composed songs were influenced by classical music and Jimi Hendrix, but songs
involving Rudolph Schenker as composer leaned towards straight hard rock and pop
hard rock. This split reflected Roth's growing dissatisfaction with his role in the band. He
began investigating spiritually oriented subjects in his private life, much as his influence
Jimi Hendrix had done towards the latter half of his career. Roth left the Scorpions in
1978.

Roth formed his own band named Electric Sun which released three albums. The first,
Earthquake (1979), was dedicated to the spirit of Jimi Hendrix and featured cover art
by artist Monika Dannemann, Jimi Hendrix's girlfriend who had been with him when he
died in 1970, and who became Roth's partner afterwards. A second album released two
years later, Fire Wind (1981)

In 1985, Roth released his third and final Electric Sun album, Beyond the Astral Skies,
dedicated to Martin Luther King and to Roth's fans. At that time, Roth entered a new
phase of creative work, composing a.o. four symphonies and two concertos, and
sometimes performing with symphony orchestras throughout Europe.