Tony Williams

Tony Williams was an American drummer. He recorded the "Wildlife" session in Sweden with Allan, Jack Bruce, Webster Lewis and Laura Logan, and the "Believe It" and "Million Dollar Legs" albums with The New Tony Williams Lifetime. Tony also appeared as a guest on the "Atavachron" album. The song "The Drums Were Yellow" is dedicated to him, as is "Blues For Tony" on the album of the same name by Holdsworth, Pasqua, Haslip and Wackerman.

Player Of The Month (Beat Instrumental 1978)

Once more fate intervened. A chance sit-in gig at Ronnie Scott’s for a sick Chuck Mangione resulted in Alphonso Johnson, his bass-player, reporting back to Tony Williams in the States that he had discovered an amazing new English guitarist.

Tony, apparently on the strength of this recommendation alone, telephoned Allan and asked him to join Lifetime. No persuasion was required. Allan packed his guitar and his suitcase and headed west.

Allan Holdsworth (Guitar Player 1980)

Along with Williams, bassist Tony Newton and keyboardist Alan Pasqua, he recorded two albums - Believe It and Million Dollar Legs - and toured in 1975 and ‘76. After bad management drove him away from that ensemble (at one point during a tour he ended up stranded in San Francisco with neither money nor a place to stay and had to pawn his guitar to get back to England), Allan recorded his first solo album, Velvet Darkness.

Allan Holdsworth (International Musician 1981)

How about sessions?

ALAN: I don’t read so I’ve always avoided sessions. I know that not all session players read and I could probably do the job but other people do it better than me, and they enjoy it. I wouldn’t because I never have liked impersonations. The point for me is not to absorb another player’s licks but his general quality. Too many people miss that point. It’s the quality not the licks. If a guitar player is known for his licks that are instantly recognisable then he isn’t making any progress and it doesn’t interest me. More important is that line of quality, and if it’s there, absorb it, not the superficial stuff. When I started playing 15 years ago, I always had trouble playing other people’s solos and so I started inventing bits of my own. They sounded awful but I know now that I did the right thing. It wasn’t until 6 years ago with Tony Williams that I realised I was developing my own style, it takes time but it’s more rewarding than playing somebody else’s note for note.

Can you give me a career résumé so far?

ALAN: 1971 I was still in Bradford; 1972 I had an invite from Ray Warleigh to come to London and a place to stay. Later that year I played with, Jon Hiseman in Tempest but I left in ‘73. He thought I played too many notes, I don’t like being told what to do, I’d rather find out for myself. Anyway I was on the dole for six months and in ‘74 I made some guest appearances with Soft Machine. In ‘75 I did two albums with Tony Williams in New York City. I like that place.

ALAN: Oh yeah I love it. L.A. on the other hand I find a bit too laid back, it’s not for me. In fact I was there in Frisco in ‘76 with Tony or should say without Tony. He was in N.Y.C. trying to sort out the management problems. It was a ridiculous situation, no money, nowhere to stay. Regretfully I sold my beloved 1961 Gibson Les Paul SG Custom to raise the plane fare back to London.

The Reluctant Virtuoso (Guitar World 1981)

"I don’t like listening to those records [Believe It, Million Dollar Legs] only from the standpoint of my own playing. I feel like my own playing’s improved so much that when I hear it, I just get depressed. But I really loved playing with Tony. The essence, the feeling. That was the best thing that ever happened to me as far as feelings and playing together. It was just such a pleasure. I’d look forward to every gig. Which is why I’m so happy about the band I’m playing with now. I get the same feeling I got when I was playing with Tony Williams.

I like to play with a drummer who plays with you. I don’t like playing with static rhythmical things. I’d rather play along where there is spontaneity happening. These guys [False Alarm] are fantastic and they inspire me. The important thing is playing with people."

No Record Contract, No Big Hoopla, But The Fans Have Kept The Faith For Allan Holdsworth (Guitar World 1982)

"I loved playing with Tony Williams. I loved playing with Jean-Luc Ponty. All of Ponty’s albums were done pretty much live - as far as I can remember they all were. Live, with everybody playing together, as opposed to people playing off on their own. The UK album was done one guy at a time. What I mean by live is that we played together in the studio rather than in different months!"

Guitar Phenom Allan Holdsworth Says He’s Not That Impressed By Flash (The Georgia Straight 1983)

What about Tony Williams?

No. I enjoyed playing with Tony Williams. He was great.

"...Where No Guitarist Has Gone Before..." (Cymbiosis 1986)

Cymbiosis: And "Looking Glass?"

Holdsworth: No, "Looking Glass" was different. "Looking Glass" was because Tony Williams played on that track, and I always enjoyed working with him. It was just like having some of that again.

Cymbiosis: You’ve named Tony Williams as probably one of your biggest influences. How does he, as a drummer, influence you as a guitarist?

Holdsworth: Because of the way that he is, the way that he plays and the way that he does things. It’s his person. People play like they are, I think. When I went to see him play with V.S.O.P., I felt I was going to burst into tears. It was Incredible. I can’t describe it. He has such a grasp on whatever it is that’s real. Like Michael Brecker. I feel the same thing when I hear him play now. And Keith Jarrett. It’s just the whole of what Tony Williams’s doing, the way he’s playing, experimenting, his timing, the whole thing. Whatever it is, he has It. And I’m totally inspired by all that. I just felt like I wanted to go and hug him after the gig because he’s so great. It transcended just notes or anything. It’s beyond. I don’t know what it is, but it sure makes you feel good.

Never again a serial-production-group (Sym Info 1986)

And when it comes to all those bands I’ve been playing in, those were all just accidents. I never did that on purpose, I never began to play in a band with the idea to search for something else as soon as possible, I always thought I would stay in that band for ever. Soft Machine was the only band I left on my own accord, because I wanted to play with Tony Williams. Not that I didn’t love Soft Machine, for me it was an interesting band to play in. At that moment I got the chance to play with Tony Williams and I thought that I would continue doing that for the time being. But the reason I left him was because the management was so bad. At a certain moment it was even that bad that during a tour pianist Alan Pasqua and myself were stranded in San Francisco and there was nobody, no hotel, no airline tickets, nothing! But I loved it to play in that band, it was fantastic.

Allan Holdsworth (English Tour Program 1989)

His next big step was when drummer John Marshall got him his first major gig, with Soft Machine: "It was all down to playing; if I hadn’t just kept playing I wouldn’t have got half the gigs I did. Derek Wadsworth, the trombone player, told John Hiseman about me and that got me the gig with Tempest. Another time I had to sit in for Chuck Mangione at Ronnie Scott’s - Chuck was ill; it was after I’d come back from my first stint in America - and Alphonso Johnson was on bass. Alphonse new [sic] that Tony Williams was looking for a guitarist for his band Lifetime, and because of that stand-in session he put my name forward and Tony Williams asked if I’d like to go back to the States and join his band." Allan moved to California in the early eighties and has remained a resident since.

Guitarist's Guitarist (Jazz Times 1989)

His Warner Brothers connection severed, Holdsworth took the demo tracks, finished them into an album which eventually became Metal Fatigue. and was released on Enigma Records. It was followed by Atavachron, on which he introduced the Synthe-Axe [sic] and featured Billy Childs and Tony Williams. When Enigma hesitated with a contract pickup, Holdsworth moved to Relativity for the release of Sand, but his current release is once again back on Enigma.

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 [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].

Mike Pachelli Show (video transcript 1991)

MP: You went on to work with Tony Williams in his New Lifetime, you did an album Million Dollar Legs, any recollections of that?

AH: Yeah it was wonderful, apart from some of the financial hazards. It was a wonderful experience obviously such an amazing musician. I learned such a lot from him I know all of the guys in the band that’s how I got to meet Alan Pasqua who’s still one of my favorite musicians on the planet. He was great…

No Secret (Guitar Extra 1992)

Q: Let’s go back a little bit. After hearing Clapton and being a fan, did you then pursue getting equipment like that, and buy a Les Paul?

Allan: I never liked Les Pauls. After I had the semi-hollow guitar, my dad bought me a Strat, and I played that for about 6 months. Then I made the mistake of going into this music store in Leeds, and I saw a SG custom in the window, a white one with 3 pick-ups. I played that thing, and that was it. So a friend of mine took over the payments on the Strat, and I started a new payment plan on the SG. And I basically used that SG pretty much right the way through until Tony Williams. I love those guitars. That one was lost mysteriously. The tour manager of Tony Williams’s band was owed some money and he had my guitar, and what he did is, he took my guitar down to the pawn shop and sold it. So when I came back to carry on working with Tony Williams, my guitar was in the window of Sam Ash’s or something. And I couldn’t get it back, because I couldn’t prove that it was mine. It was there for sale, but they wanted so much money for it that I had to go buy another SG somewhere else. This was right around that time of the first albu m, Believe It. And then I got this other SG Custom, a really nice one, but it was black, and that was a beautiful guitar. Then the band got stranded in San Francisco and I had to sell that one to get home.

Creating Imaginary Backdrops (Innerviews 1993)

Tony Williams.

That was great. We had some rough times making it work, but it was a great experience. I enjoyed every minute of it.

Allan Holdsworth: A biography (Atavachron 1994)

1975’s Believe It is still considered by jazz/rock enthusiasts to be one of the greatest albums recorded during the 1970s-its followup, Million Dollar Legs found Williams (likely coerced into) pushing the band into a more commercial mold-and it never met the label’s expectation for sales; management problems ensued and Holdsworth found himself stranded in the U.S. after the group’s final tour without plane fare back to England. "I lived out of a suitcase, sleeping on floors for the better part of five years," he once recounted in an interview about this period, during which his first marriage ended in a divorce.

No Secrets (Facelift 1994)

"I wish I could have stayed longer because the album was done right at the beginning and we worked together a lot after that. It would have been nice to have recorded another one but unfortunately that was at the time when I got that opportunity to work with Tony Williams. It was a real terrible thing in a way, because you never get offered anything when you’re not doing anything - you always have to make some rough decision. I was really happy playing with the Soft Machine. But the opportunity with Tony Williams just seemed like something should do. So then I helped try to get Soft Machine hooked up with another guitar player and recommended a couple of guys - actually Ollie was one of them, and also John Etheridge who actually ended playing with them."

So, how did the Gong projects come about?

Well, it’s funny because it kind of intertwined. I then went to do the thing with Tony Williams and stayed there in New York and then we had some real problems. Not with Tony Williams or the band, because that was the other thing - I loved that band - enjoyed every minute of it - but it was really rough financially. I stayed at Tony Williams’s house which was fine. I didn’t need any money and he took really good care of me. But when we were on tour, we had got back to New York and I’d scraped together enough money to get a plane ticket back to see my girlfriend. So I was there, hanging out, and then I phoned back to see what was happening, and then I found out that the tour manager didn’t get paid and he was in charge of my guitar and he sold it!

"That was the first and only time that I ever got that attached to an instrument. I was mortified! I only had one - I carried it everywhere - I used to buy a ticket for it on the plane... I’d had a lot of SG’s - but instruments are like that - you can make 50 of them but there’ll only be one of them that’s any good - some of them might be OK, but only one of them will be magic and so it was sold and I was completely bombed out. So then I went back to New York and had to buy a new guitar and there in the window was hanging my guitar! But I couldn’t prove it was my guitar and it was more money than I could afford, so I had to buy something else! So I bought another one and then we did another tour and ended up on the West Coast, ended up in San Francisco. And then the band ran out of money. Tony Williams went back to New York to find out why there was no more money and both me and Alan Pasqua had no hotel - we were absolutely out on the street with a suitcase and a guitar. So we went down to the club where we’d been playing and the waitresses there gave us free drinks. We found the guy who had put us up for the night and we get back to this guy’s house in the evening and he said, ‘yeah, you can stay in this bed and you stay in that bed’. And we get back after the club had closed and there were two other guys in those beds! So this went on for three nights, and after the third night I said, ‘Man, I can’t hack this anymore’, so I took my guitar to the pawn shop and sold it. Alan Pasqua lent me the money (he lived in New Jersey at the time) to get from San Francisco to New Jersey and bought the ticket with my guitar from New York to London. I didn’t have anything! Just a suitcase.

"Tony Newton was OK, because he lived in Los Angeles, so a ticket from San Francisco to Los Angeles wasn’t really expensive. So that’s when this thing came about with Gong. I got this call from Nicholas Powell, who actually managed me for a while. He split from Virgin Records and wanted to get involved in the video stuff. He really helped me out. In fact, it was Nicholas Powell who gave me the free studio time on the barge to record the IOU album.

"So I did. I played with them and was intrigued with the line-up... I thought it was a fascinating group. So we did that first album. And then I got another call from Tony Williams to go back again, and it was a really tough one, and this time I decided not to go. And then I guess I went from Gong to UK, because I met Bill during that period."