Television guitarist Richard Lloyd dies at 75 years old

Richard Lloyd, co-founder and guitarist of Television, died Saturday at 75 years old at his home in Chattanooga, Tennessee, his family said in a statement reported by Rolling Stone on Nov. 7.

Lloyd’s role outweighed the size of Television’s recorded output: the band released three studio albums from 1977 to 1992, compared with Lloyd’s longer solo catalogue after the group first split.

His family said Lloyd died from Cholangiocarcinoma, a bile duct cancer. “His loving wife Sheila and his dog Willie Mays were with him at the end,” the family said in the statement to Rolling Stone.

Lloyd was diagnosed with bile duct cancer in March 2026, eight months before his death in November 2026. A GoFundMe created to help with medical expenses and other costs said he had tumors in his liver, including one doctors could not remove because it was close to major blood vessels.

Television’s reputation rested heavily on the partnership between Lloyd and frontman Tom Verlaine, who died in 2023, three years before Lloyd. Their interlocking guitar parts gave the group a more expansive sound than the direct power-chord approach associated with many punk contemporaries.

Marquee Moon, released in 1977, became Television’s defining album and the first of the band’s three studio albums over a 15-year recording span through 1992. The catalogue otherwise consisted of Adventure in 1978 and Television in 1992.

Lloyd was born Oct. 25, 1951, in Pittsburgh and grew up largely in New York City. He began on drums before turning to guitar, later writing in his 2017 memoir, Everything Is Combustible, that he heard a voice telling him: “You need to play a melody instrument.”

Before Television, Lloyd played with Velvert Turner, who had developed his guitar skills under Jimi Hendrix, and with John Lee Hooker after moving to Boston. He later returned to New York and became part of the city’s proto-punk scene.

Television formed after Lloyd came back to New York in 1973, four years before Marquee Moon was released in 1977. Richard Hell was the band’s first bassist, Billy Fica played drums, and Fred Smith later replaced Hell after playing with Blondie. The group became associated with CBGB and Max’s Kansas City, and released its debut single, “Little Johnny Jewel,” in 1975.

Lloyd later credited himself with adding much of the detail to Television’s best-known recordings. In a 2015 interview with The Stranger, he said of Verlaine: “What he was missing, I could supply. And vice versa.”

Commercial success did not match the band’s later critical standing. Rolling Stone reported that Marquee Moon did not sell strongly on release, and Television split after Adventure, its second studio album in 1978, one year after its debut.

Lloyd issued his first solo album, Alchemy, in 1979, one year after Television broke up. In his memoir, he wrote about addiction during the early 1980s and said he became sober in 1984, five years after his solo debut.

He released Field of Fire in 1986, two years after becoming sober, and continued recording, touring, working as a session musician and teaching guitar. Rolling Stone reported that Lloyd later released seven more albums over the rest of his career, a larger body of solo work than Television’s three-album studio catalogue.

Lloyd returned for Television’s 1992 reunion and played again with the band in the early 2000s, but left before a 2007 tour marking the 30th anniversary of Marquee Moon. His final solo album was The Countdown, released in 2018, eight years before his death.