Velvet Darkness (album): Difference between revisions
From Allan Holdsworth Information Center
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Well, I think they bought the whole CTI catalog from someone. That album’s been bootlegged three times, and each time I think "Great, that’s the end of that one." But it showed up again—it keeps showing up! But now that it’s owned by a big label, they had to produce all the paperwork and they couldn’t. So, that’s how we got ‘em. They had no paperwork for anything to say they could do any of that stuff. But there’s no way you can stop them. We had a bootleg video out in Japan. I had a contract that said this could not be used. I actually have a contract and it just came out! The video just came out! It’s called Tokyo Dreams. What it was is we knew the cameras were going to be there, but we were supposed to be able to view it first. It was supposed to be completely up to us whether we wanted it used it or not. But of course that was not the truth. They lied and they put it out and it was done in a really sneaky way. | Well, I think they bought the whole CTI catalog from someone. That album’s been bootlegged three times, and each time I think "Great, that’s the end of that one." But it showed up again—it keeps showing up! But now that it’s owned by a big label, they had to produce all the paperwork and they couldn’t. So, that’s how we got ‘em. They had no paperwork for anything to say they could do any of that stuff. But there’s no way you can stop them. We had a bootleg video out in Japan. I had a contract that said this could not be used. I actually have a contract and it just came out! The video just came out! It’s called Tokyo Dreams. What it was is we knew the cameras were going to be there, but we were supposed to be able to view it first. It was supposed to be completely up to us whether we wanted it used it or not. But of course that was not the truth. They lied and they put it out and it was done in a really sneaky way. | ||
==NARADA MICHAEL WALDEN ON WORKING WITH ALLAN== | |||
Recently, drummer Narada Michael Walden was a guest on Questlove’s podcast, “Questlove Supreme”. The podcast was published on April 10, 2024. As you may know, Narada played drums on Allan’s solo album “Velvet Darkness” that came out in 1976. In the podcast, Narada sheds a light on what happened during those sessions. In most ways, he actually confirms what Allan has said: The band met in the studio, and were rehearsing the songs while the engineer was recording, and that’s what we hear on the album. | |||
Narada does not share Allan’s misgivings about the album, though: He got paid to do the session, and is proud to say he worked with Allan Holdsworth. | |||
You can hear the whole podcast here: | |||
https://omny.fm/shows/questlove-supreme/narada-michael-walden-part-2 | |||
Special thanks to Dirk V. for bringing this to our attention! | |||
This is an edit of the transcript provided with the podcast, shortened for clarity. Questlove starts talking about Allan at 1:10:18, even though the transcript times it to 1:03:42. | |||
QUESTLOVE: I'm a big CTI Records fan, as people might know, Creed Taylor and you worked with Allan Holdsworth on an album called 'Velvet Darkness' in 1976. Do you have any memories of those sessions and Allan Holdsworth? | |||
NARADA: Yes. Allan asked me to come and record them at CTI. He's one of the most brilliant guitar players in the world, and we all know he's very sensitive. On keyboards is a cat who was from Tony Williams' band; Alan Pasqua, and on bass from Weather Report; Alphonso Johnson. And I go there with my drum kit. It's a white Gretsch kit with the enameled double painted on the inside, which sounds they are like fibes [sic]; clear, but they're - mighty like that - wood. | |||
And so then Allan starts showing us these songs and as he shows the song, then we play the song and then we would cut it. Then we maybe cut it a second time and that will be that. Then, you know, we kind of went through those songs like that. In his mind, he's thinking - he’s just kind of showing us the songs and we're...- you know - come back another time or whatever he'd think, I don’t know. | |||
But Creed Taylor and Rudy van Gelder, the great engineer, they were loving it and that was what they wanted to get: that live, fresh, raw vibe and then they wanted to put it out… and Allan wanted to do more; do more takes and whatever he wanted to do, you know. So it’s some discrepancy between his concept and maybe what theirs was. But I was just doing what I was asked to do and being paid to do whatever it was. So that was the album. It came out and I'm proud of it. I'm proud to say I worked with Allan Holdsworth. | |||
=Links= | =Links= | ||
