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Gang of Four (band)

English rock band

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 2, 2026
Entity authorityQ1130624 ↗
Source-derived summary

Gang of Four are an English post-punk band, formed in 1976 in Leeds. The original members were singer Jon King, guitarist Andy Gill, drummer Hugo Burnham, and bass guitarist Dave Allen. There have been many different line-ups including, among other notable musicians, Sara Lee, Gail Ann Dorsey, Mark Heaney and David Pajo. After a brief lull in the 1980s, different constellations of the band recorded two studio albums in the 1990s. Between 2004 and 2006 the original line-up reunited; Gill toured using the name between 2012 and his death in 2020. In 2021, the band announced that King, Burnham, and Sara Lee would be reuniting for a US tour in 2022 with David Pajo on guitar. They continued to perform live, including at the Cruel World Festival in Pasadena, California; headlining Luna Fest in Coimbra, Portugal, and a UK Tour in October 2023. They then announced that their "Long Goodbye" tour in 2025 would be their last headlining tour of the US and Europe. For this tour, King and Burnham were joined by Ted Leo on guitar and Gail Greenwood on bass.

The band play a stripped-down mix of punk rock, funk and dub, with a lyrical emphasis on the social and political ills of society.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Gang of Four (band)” as english rock band. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Gang, Four and band.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1976, 2004, 2006, 2012—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1977-01-01. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Gang, Four and band providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Gang of Four (band)”, the useful work is to connect “english rock band” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1130624. VIAF identifies the subject as 140860979. The Library of Congress control number is n92010962. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1976, 2004, 2006 and 2012.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Gang of Four (band)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.