Gary Husband: Difference between revisions
From Allan Holdsworth Information Center
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"The guys all played incredibly. I was really moved by what they did. Among some of the highlights noted by Holdsworth are drummer '''Gary'''’ '''Husband'''’s City Nights (Very nice," says Holdsworth; "with good chord progressions."); Steve Hunt’s Maid Marian [sic] ("When he first presented it to us it reminded me of something from Old England, like Robin Hood, but it was quite soft so we renamed it Maid Marian."); Endomorph, a solo piece in which Holdsworth dubs guitar over Synth-Axe; Spokes ("I really liked bicycling riding when I was a kid, and this piece reminded me of it - of wheelies, actually."); 54 Duncan Terrace (This was the address of a really great piano player friend of mine who died a few years ago. He had this wonderful room in his house.. A white room with blue clouds painted on it or maybe it was vice versa And he had this old Bluthner piano in there. The music he used to write was soft and gentle, with colorful harmonics. And I wrote the piece for him. The chord sequen ce sort of reminds me of something he would have done."). | "The guys all played incredibly. I was really moved by what they did. Among some of the highlights noted by Holdsworth are drummer '''Gary'''’ '''Husband'''’s City Nights (Very nice," says Holdsworth; "with good chord progressions."); Steve Hunt’s Maid Marian [sic] ("When he first presented it to us it reminded me of something from Old England, like Robin Hood, but it was quite soft so we renamed it Maid Marian."); Endomorph, a solo piece in which Holdsworth dubs guitar over Synth-Axe; Spokes ("I really liked bicycling riding when I was a kid, and this piece reminded me of it - of wheelies, actually."); 54 Duncan Terrace (This was the address of a really great piano player friend of mine who died a few years ago. He had this wonderful room in his house.. A white room with blue clouds painted on it or maybe it was vice versa And he had this old Bluthner piano in there. The music he used to write was soft and gentle, with colorful harmonics. And I wrote the piece for him. The chord sequen ce sort of reminds me of something he would have done."). | ||
==[[The Unreachable Star (Guitar World 1989)]]== | |||
GW: When Jimmy Johnson remarked that he was listening to Believe It on the way down to yesterday’s session, you winced. That album is really something of a landmark, and your playing is a great part of what distinguishes it. | |||
HOLDSWORTH:: Well, it was a great period for me in terms of being introduced to some really unbelievable musicians; that’s when I met Tony [Williams] and Alan Pasqua and Tony Newton, and hanging out and just being given a chance to play with them was really amazing. Alan is a truly astounding musician and I’ve always loved the way he plays. It’s also only in the last five years that I realized what kind of a genius the guy is. Same with '''Gary''' '''Husband'''. But getting back to that particular period, I hated what I did on that record. I can’t listen to it, but I thought everybody else sounded great. But I did the best I could at the time, so, that’s all you can do, unfortunately I wish I could go back and do ‘em all again [laughs]. | |||
GW: Did that record do anything for you? | |||
HOLDSWORTH:: Well, it’s the same prob1em. I have great difficulty listening to it now because I sound so bad on it. But it was obviously representative of what we were doing, and that’s the way I played then, because I didn’t know any better. But it’s a good record in terms of having captured something; it captured the essence of what we were doing. And '''Gary''' I thought, played just great on it. Paul Williams sang great, too. | |||
GW: Do you think the vocal concept prevented you from getting over with the jazz constituency? | |||
HOLDSWORTH:: It was just something that I grew out of, or that I thought I should change. The original vocal concept stemmed from the trio concept; I wanted to be able to play things as a trio with a melody and chords, set up in a situation where I could perform them with just a guitar. So I used the voice like an instrument, and Paul was the perfect person for that. But I just wanted to do something different. I mean, I never know what I’m going to feel like or what I’m going to want to do, because it changes, and I can’t help it. When I got the SynthAxe, a whole other thing suddenly opened up to me and I didn’t see what I was doing as a musician, or the band itself, in the same way anymore. And I also saw the vocal thing sitting me on the fence really hard, and that people who like instrumental or "jazz" music were kind of perturbed by the vocal aspect of my music. I never was, but I thought that they were, and I also felt that there were people who liked the vocal aspect of t he songs but didn’t like the rest of it. It was like stretching both sides, and, like I said, when I got the SynthAxe I decided that that was what I wanted to do, so I just continued to sit on the fence in a different way. | |||
There is one English guy I admire who never gets any mention - Steve Topping. There’s a guy who’s amazing. And it’s typical of England that he can’t get out or get a deal or anything, because, like '''Gary''' '''Husband''', he suffers too much opposition to what he’s doing. Steve plays really; really interesting harmonic lines - and definitely absolutely, not bop. His lines are so unusual that the bop guys would have a hard time figuring them out [laughs]. And he plays chords that I’ve never heard people play before. He’s got ridiculous chops - I’ve seen him demonstrate both left- and right-hand facility; but he’s got just outrageous right-hand chops. He’s got it all covered. We had a band back in England called Handlebars: just him, '''Gary''' myself, and anybody we could get on bass. It was a really free thing where we’d just go, and some very interesting things happened, mostly because of him. He has this unbelievable control of space. | |||
==[[Allan Holdsworth’s Untold Secrets + Worthy Quotes (Guitar Player 1990)]]== | ==[[Allan Holdsworth’s Untold Secrets + Worthy Quotes (Guitar Player 1990)]]== | ||
