My partner, Paul Travis, who has died of cancer aged 73, was a musician and songwriter who was part of the British progressive rock scene in the 1970s, first with his own band, Travis, then with Liar.
Born in Oldham, Paul was the oldest child of Alan, an exhibition and design manager for ICI, and Alice (nee Worthington), who worked in a school canteen. He went to Chadderton grammar school for boys in Oldham, and as an accomplished guitarist became a member of various bands on the Manchester folk scene from the age of 16.
After graduating from Coventry College of Art in 1969 with a degree in graphic design, he moved to Canada to join a nightclub band in Montreal on a short-term contract. When that project ran its course he returned home to form Travis in 1971 with a group of friends in Barnsley. They recorded the album Shine on Me in 1973.
After Travis split up, he was instrumental in the formation in 1975 of the rock group Liar, who toured in the UK with Slade and UFO with Paul on guitar and vocals, and also went on the road, unusually for the time, in communist eastern Europe.
Paul released a solo album, Return of the Native, in 1976, and also recorded two albums with Liar, Straight from the Hip (1977) and Set the World on Fire (1978), the second of which was popular in the US. While in California promoting that album, the band recorded a third collection of songs at the Crystal Sounds Studio in Los Angeles, but they split up in 1979 and the album did not see the light of day.
In 1987 Paul moved to Germany, forming a successful duo there with Sandy Davis, a former member of the progressive rock group Gracious, as Travis and Davis. He and Sandy later joined a German band, the Nightbirds, playing concerts and festivals. After returning to the UK in 1991 Paul worked as an interior designer and decorator and for an engineering company, although he always kept up with his playing. I met him in 2004 when he walked into the bookshop where I worked.
In 2019 Paul and his Liar band mates agreed to the release of the third album that had remained on the shelf back in 1979. It was issued as Sunset Plaza Drive in 2020, and working on the album with his old friends was a source of great joy for Paul in the last months of his life.
He is survived by me, his children, Ben and Georgina, from his first marriage, to Josephine Pearce, which ended in divorce, his stepchildren, Alex and Jenny, from his second marriage to Jean Jones, which ended in 2002, and by his sister, Maxine.
