Velvet Darkness (album): Difference between revisions
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[[File:Ah velvet.jpg|right|200px]]"Velvet Darkness" is a 1976 solo album by Allan Holdsworth. The album features him on electric and acoustic guitar, as well as a short violin performance. He also wrote all of the tunes. | [[File:Ah velvet.jpg|right|200px]]"Velvet Darkness" is a 1976 solo album by Allan Holdsworth. The album features him on electric and acoustic guitar, as well as a short violin performance. He also wrote all of the tunes. | ||
In 1976, while in New York, Allan was offered a recording contract with CTI Records by Creed Taylor. Allan assembled a band consisting of Alphonso Johnson on bass, Narada Michael Walden on drums, and Alan Pasqua on keyboards. According to Allan, the band was just rehearsing for a single day in the studio when they were dismissed by the producer at the end of the day. Later, Allan found out that the producer had recorded the studio rehearsals, and mixed and released them without Allan's consent. He was completely unaware of the album release until he received a copy of the album on his doorstep back in England many months later. He disowned the album completely, and fought to have it deleted. In 1990, a CD version appeared, which contained all new mixes, as well as five alternate takes. This is the version that is listed here. The track "Floppy Hat" even had the original guitar solo from the album replaced with an alternate take, but without notification. Allan fought yet again to have the CD | In 1976, while in New York, Allan was offered a recording contract with CTI Records by Creed Taylor. Allan assembled a band consisting of Alphonso Johnson on bass, Narada Michael Walden on drums, and Alan Pasqua on keyboards. According to Allan, the band was just rehearsing for a single day in the studio when they were dismissed by the producer at the end of the day. Later, Allan found out that the producer had recorded the studio rehearsals, and mixed and released them without Allan's consent. He was completely unaware of the album release until he received a copy of the album on his doorstep back in England many months later. He disowned the album completely, and fought to have it deleted. In 1990, a CD version appeared, which contained all new mixes, as well as five alternate takes. This is the version that is listed here. The track "Floppy Hat" even had the original guitar solo from the album replaced with an alternate take, but without notification. Allan fought yet again to have the CD removed from the market. He claimed that he never released any royalties whatsoever from the album. Since Allan's passing, the album has reappeared on streaming services. | ||
The music is very raw indeed, and it sounds exactly like what Allan claimed: A studio jam or rehearsal. The title track lifts ideas from Igginbottom's "Golden Lakes", while "Kinder" is an acoustic version of "Fred" on the "Believe It" album. Other tracks would be reworked later, as Allan by his own admission counted nothing that was done on the album. A chord progression in "Gattox" would later be revisited on "Gas Lamp Blues". "Wish" would be reworked into "The Things You See". The title track would reappear in a more refined form as "Shadows Of" on the "Gazeuse" album. | The music is very raw indeed, and it sounds exactly like what Allan claimed: A studio jam or rehearsal. The title track lifts ideas from Igginbottom's "Golden Lakes", while "Kinder" is an acoustic version of "Fred" on the "Believe It" album. Other tracks would be reworked later, as Allan by his own admission counted nothing that was done on the album. A chord progression in "Gattox" would later be revisited on "Gas Lamp Blues". "Wish" would be reworked into "The Things You See". The title track would reappear in a more refined form as "Shadows Of" on the "Gazeuse" album. | ||
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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= | ||
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Discogs: https://www.discogs.com/Allan-Holdsworth-Velvet-Darkness/release/3875484 | Discogs: https://www.discogs.com/Allan-Holdsworth-Velvet-Darkness/release/3875484 | ||
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvet_Darkness | |||
YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_k2yntMRbGkZ6mbruDmNBPWNZnYXhr-Das | YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_k2yntMRbGkZ6mbruDmNBPWNZnYXhr-Das | ||
<div style='text-align: center;'>''Previous'': [[Million Dollar Legs (album)|'''Million Dollar Legs''']] - ''Next'': [[Gazeuse! (album)|'''Gazeuse!''']]</div> | [[Allan Holdsworth Discography|'''Discography''']] - <div style='text-align: center;'>''Previous'': [[Million Dollar Legs (album)|'''Million Dollar Legs''']] - ''Next'': [[Gazeuse! (album)|'''Gazeuse!''']]</div> | ||
[[Category:Solo albums]] | [[Category:Solo albums]] | ||
[[Category:Discography]] | [[Category:Discography]] | ||
