I think that it was in the Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract that I read, years ago, something like the only definition of who belongs in the (baseball) Hall of Fame is who gets elected. In other words, even in a statistically driven sport such as baseball (which has become even more so due to the work of James and fellow sabermetricians), there’s no formula to decide who belongs. James, and others, have created various predictive formulas, but they are not an attempt to determine who deserves to be in the Hall, but rather to predict whether the player’s statistics are the type that would convince the voters to vote them in.
This type of determination is even harder to do with the Rock Hall, because there are no stats, really, other than maybe sales, or streams, or concert attendance-but I think most people (at least most people who read this type of blog) are unwilling to equate popularity with quality. Although it is nice when it happens. For the Rock Hall, it sort of just comes to down to gut feelings, considering some objective, but mostly subjective factors—plus a fan vote. Of course to be fair, it is hard to take the Rock Hall all that seriously when it inducted Bon Jovi a few years ago.
My pitch today is for King Crimson, which based on the number of times I’ve written about them, their music or their members (see here, here,here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and most recently, here), you might assume are my favorite band. They aren’t (don’t ask me what is, though). But when you look at the quality and variety of their work, the length of their career, even with all of the interruptions, and most notably, the influence of the band on so many genres of music, it is hard to justify their exclusion. There is one full member of King Crimson who is a Rock Hall inductee (and another performer who sang one song for Crimson who is in the Hall……the answer will be at the end of this piece).
It is hard to argue that King Crimson did not influence, among other genres, progressive rock, hard rock, various forms of metal, jazz/rock fusion, punk, new wave, grunge, math rock, jam bands, noise rock, and even hip-hop. There’s a nice summary of some of this in Wikipedia, or just Google “King Crimson influence” and fall down the rabbit hole.
Also, arguably, Robert Fripp belongs in the Hall individually for his solo guitar work/"Frippertronics" and collaborations with Brian Eno, David Bowie, Peter Gabriel and others.
That’s it. Show me a band or artist that is more influential than King Crimson that hasn’t already been inducted.
The answer to the question is that drummer Bill Bruford was inducted into the Rock Hall as a member of Yes, as was Jon Anderson, who sang “Prince Rupert Awakes” on Crimson’s third album, Lizard.
I’m not sure where I first heard about Israel-born, avant-garde classical cellist Maya Beiser, but it might well have been from this piece by Cover Me founder Ray Padgett about her awesome cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir.” Beiser’s 2014 album Uncovered is a collection of ten rock songs completely reimagined by Beiser and arranger Evan Ziporyn, a fellow member of Bang on a Can All-Stars. The songs run the gamut from Muddy Waters to Janis Joplin, to Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Nirvana (which I wrote about here), and my favorite of them all, her cover of King Crimson’s elegiac “Epitaph,” from their debut album, In The Court of the Crimson King.
“Epitaph” was written by Robert Fripp, Ian McDonald, Greg Lake, and Michael Giles with lyrics written by Peter Sinfield, and those lyrics, were sung beautifully by Lake, who explained that the song “is basically a song about looking with confusion upon a world gone mad.” It features heavy use of Mellotron along with woodwinds and dramatic tympani, giving it a symphonic feel.
It was this complex, symphonic sound that attracted Beiser, whose classical training did not prevent her from consuming and appreciating popular music throughout her life. In an interview for Classical Voice, Beiser said:
I was very much entrenched in classical music, and none of my teachers knew anything about Genesis, King Crimson, Brian Eno. It was not part of my education. I started to listen to this music and it completely transformed me. Pink Floyd were totally revolutionary, creating a symphonic like piece. King Crimson’s ‘Epitaph’ is one of my favorite songs of all time, and it lends itself to cello because their thinking was symphonic — classical.
She continued:
Part of my motivation for doing this album is for people to see how this is great music, how the masters of our time are just as great as but different than Beethoven and Schubert. … All classical music performances are covers.
Continuing this approach, Beiser recently released a version of David Bowie’s last album, Blackstar, re imagined as a cello concerto.
To create her cover of “Epitaph,” Beiser overdubbed and processed her cello, and Ziporyn added just a hint of clarinet and bass clarinet. Beiser slows down the tempo a little, and if anything, her instrumental version is even sadder and statelier than the great original.
As a brief aside, since this is a piece about the cello and King Crimson, about five years after the debut album, a mostly different lineup of King Crimson released Red, one of my favorite albums, and it includes a cellist (and acoustic bass player), who are uncredited, and whose identity appears to still be a mystery.
One more aside--the punk record label Epitaph Records, home (at times) of bands such as Rancid, Bad Religion, Descendants, The Distillers and Social Distortion, was named after a lyric from this decidedly not punk song.
Since its formation in 1968, King Crimson has gone through many different lineups and musicians, and over the years, there has been some sort of official differentiation between “members” and additional musicians who recorded and/or toured with the band, although some people moved between the two statuses. In 2020, we lost three musicians affiliated with King Crimson, two full members, and one who declined the rights and privileges, such as they are, of that status. Two of those remembered here were involved in 1970, the third played during the more recent configuration of King Crimson, from 2013 until his death earlier this year.
Gordon Haskell was a school friend of King Crimson leader Robert Fripp, and played with him in a band when they were teenagers, before moving on to become the bass player in the band Fleur de Lys (and, apparently, briefly sharing a flat with Jimi Hendrix). They also acted as a house band for Atlantic Records, which gave Haskell the opportunity to work with noted producers, including George Martin, Arif Mardin and Glyn Johns. He recorded a solo album in 1969, but it went nowhere.
Meanwhile, his old friend Robert was having problems of his own. After recording In the Court of the Crimson King, a legitimate classic, and touring behind the album, both Ian McDonald and Michael Giles left the band. Then, singer/bass player Greg Lake quit, planning to form Emerson, Lake and Palmer. After hiring, and then sacking, the still unknown Elton John (who got paid £250 for not working) as the vocalist on Crimson’s second record, In The Wake of Poseidon, Lake ultimately agreed to sing on the album (in exchange for Crimson’s PA equipment), but there was one song that Fripp felt wasn’t right for Lake. He approached Haskell, who recalled, “I straight away, without any hesitation, said ‘absolutely not’. I was totally R&B oriented and it wasn’t my sort of music. I didn’t like King Crimson. Anyway, after a while I said I’d think about it, and my wife got to work on me because she wanted a regular income so in the end I joined.” Haskell sang on one song, “Cadence and Cascade,” which is a beautiful ballad, beautifully sung, as you can hear at the link above.
After completing Poseidon, Fripp regrouped again, adding more musicians, who began work on Lizard, which was jazzier and more avant-garde than the two prior records, and it was not a good experience for Haskell, who sang and played bass on the album. He didn’t like the music, noting that “At the end of one song, ‘Indoor Games’, I just burst out laughing. You can hear it on the album. They thought it was really freaky, that I’d understood the lyrics and my part – but the truth of the matter is, it was a lousy song, the lyrics were ludicrous and my singing was atrocious so I just burst out laughing. And they thought it was wonderful!” Haskell left the band, acrimoniously, during rehearsals for live performances, and later King Crimson for royalties.
After leaving King Crimson, Haskell struggled for years, before having a hit single in England, “How Wonderful You Are” in 2001 and he followed that up with a successful album, Harry’s Bar, in 2002. His next record was not as well-received, and he was released by his label after a dispute. From then on, Haskell continued to release music without much success, and wrote an autobiography, The Road to Harry’s Bar.
Haskell died from cancer on October 15, 2020 at the age of 74. Announcing his death, the official King Crimson website noted, “The
experience was not a happy one for Gordon and he bitterly regretted his
decision to join,” and that Haskell had “come to detest” the song
“Cadence and Cascade,” which is a shame.
Keith Tippett also played on the Poseidon and Lizard albums. Allmusic’s biography of Tippett states that he “held an unparalleled place in British contemporary music,” due to the breadth of his collaborations, the variety of music he wrote and performed, and the influence that he had on other musicians. Tippett's work ranges from free improvisation as a solo pianist and with duos and small groups, to compositions for, and performances with, contemporary classical groups and large-scale works for Jazz Orchestra.
Tippett (whose last name was actually Tippetts, which he changed for the delightful reason that he was tired of seeing his name on posters with the apostrophe after the last “t” and not the “s”), was a classically trained pianist who had formed a jazz band, the Keith Tippett Sextet, which released its first album in 1969. Other members of that band included Elton Dean, later of Soft Machine, and Mark Charig and Nick Evans, who also contributed to King Crimson albums. Tippett was hired to play piano on Poseidon (including some pretty playing on “Cadence and Cascade”), and along with Charig and Evans, played on Lizard and Islands. His influence in King Crimson increased over time, and he claimed that Fripp offered him co-creative control over the band if he would join full time. However, as he remembered, “I didn’t want to join King Crimson, not because I didn’t like King Crimson, I had great respect for the band, but I wanted to be doing other things, I didn’t want to just go out on the road for eighteen months. I had too much love for the sextet and it would have taken me away from the jazz scene.”
One of those things was to put together a 50 piece band, Centipede, that included members of his jazz band, along with members of Soft Machine, King Crimson, and other bands that skirted the progressive rock/jazz genres, along with students from the London School of Music. It released an album, Septober Energy, produced by Fripp (who had appeared live with the band, but was not on the album), in 1971. Melody Maker wrote about this album, “In this one piece he has done more than almost anybody else that comes to mind in breaking down barriers in rock, jazz and classical music” The album was, however, not commercially successful, probably for the reason that it broke so many barriers.
Tippett continued to perform and record improvisational and avant-garde jazz music and jazz/rock with various combinations of musicians, including many from the Canterbury scene, until fairly recently—his discography as a leader and sideman is vast.
Tippett succumbed on June 14, 2020 to a heart attack after two years of recurring illness at the age of 72.
After disbanding a version of King Crimson in 2008 and playing with various Crimson-related musicians before briefly retiring, Fripp decided to form a new King Crimson lineup, this time with three drummers. One of the drummers was Bill Rieflin, who had played with, among others, Ministry, KMFDM, and R.E.M. after Bill Berry left the band. Although mostly known for playing industrial and darker rock music, his stint with R.E.M. and his work on other projects demonstrated the wide scope of his talent. In addition, he was a prolific session musician, recording with artists from Nine Inch Nails to experimental rockers Swans and pop singer Robbie Williams. He released his first solo album, Birth of a Giant in 1999, which included contributions from Fripp and Trey Gunn, who was in King Crimson at the time.
Over the years, Rieflin, who also played keyboards and other instruments, had collaborated with Fripp in a number of different projects, and participated in Fripp’s Guitar Craft project, about which he stated (before joining Crimson), “I couldn't possibly describe in any detail the impact this has had in my life; I can say that it was and continues to be significant. Were I to say "life-changing," this would be true, but it wouldn't begin to communicate the depth of the experience.”
So his inclusion as part of the new “seven-headed monster” configuration of Crimson, along with Fripp, Tony Levin, Mel Collins, Pat Mastelotto, Gavin Harrison (who had played in prior versions of the band), and Jakko Jakszyk, was not surprising. I saw this band play in 2014 and was blown away by the power and intricacy of the percussion work (as well as by the rest of the band, of course). Here’s a video of the three drummers, with Rieflin in the center, “soloing” during rehearsals in 2014, highlighting how they play both in unison and separately.
Rieflin took a “sabbatical” from the band in 2016, but returned in 2017 to create a “Double Quartet” formation, but rather than have four drummers (that would be crazy, right?), he focused on “mellotron, keys and fairy dusting, rather than using drums as a main instrument.” He didn’t appear on the autumn US tour in 2017 (when I saw them again, and they were, again, great), but returned in 2018 before taking another sabbatical in 2019.
Rieflin died on March 24, 2020 from cancer at the age of 59.
You’re probably sick of reading how I learned something interesting in researching my post, but this time, I learned four interesting things. And what better way to spend the continued COVID-19 life slowdown than learning three interesting things about music, right?
First, if you asked me who was older, Andy Summers, former guitarist for The Police, or Robert Fripp, King Crimson guitarist, I probably would have said Fripp. Mostly because he’s been pretty famous since the late 1960s, is generally categorized as being a prog-rocker and usually wears suits these days, while Summers became famous as the guitarist in a punk band in the late 70s-early 80s. But that’s wrong. Summers is 77 (!), while Fripp is 74. I think I knew that Summers played in Soft Machine, and with other bands before The Police, but I guess his time in that band made me think he was younger than he is (Sting is 68 and Stewart Copeland is 67. Henry Padovani, The Police’s original guitarist (!), is also 67.)
The second thing that I learned is that Summers and Fripp first met in the early 1960s, when Summers’ band, Zoot Money’s Big Roll Band, was the regular entertainment at the Bournemouth Majestic Hotel when Fripp was attending Bournemouth College. And when Zoot Money moved to London, Fripp’s band, the Majestic Dance Orchestra, replaced them at the hotel. The Majestic was a Jewish hotel, and the Majestic Dance Orchestra occasionally played weddings and bar mitzvahs. (Interesting thing number three!)
Apparently, the two incredible, but different, guitar players remained friends.
We’ll get to the fourth interesting thing soon.
In 1981 and 1982, when both men had time between their Police and Crimson obligations, they met to jam together, and those sessions ultimately resulted in an album of 13 instrumentals entitled, I Advance Masked. To my ears, much of the album, and particularly the title track, displays some similarity to the interlocking guitar work that Fripp was doing with Adrian Belew in the recently reformed King Crimson, except that Summers and Belew’s styles are very different, so it didn’t sound exactly like Crimson.
Not being a guitarist, or really a musician of any sort, I’ll let Summers describe how his and Fripp’s styles were different:
We’re still pretty much polar opposites in our playing. Robert over the years has gone down one line, the polyrhythmic single-line approach, and he’s brought it to a degree of perfection where he can improvise on it and play it like no other guitarist in the world. His strengths are playing the sort of fuzz solo, very quirky and very rhythmic. I’m classically-trained, came up playing pop and blues (Zoot Money’s Big Roll Band, Soft Machine, Animals, etc.), a regular rock soloist in many ways. It’s hard, but it clicks. Robert gives the music a spine, he’s the masculine element, and I probably represent the feminine side of the duo, but out of it a whole new personality emerges. It’s a beautiful form of alchemy.
The song, remarkably, also spawned a very bad video:
So, what’s the fourth thing?
The title of the song and album was derived from something that none other than René Descartes once wrote in a diary, and which supposedly became the second most famous thing he ever said (although I admit to never having heard it before): “larvatus prodeo,” which sounds like a Harry Potter spell, but means, “masked, I advance.” Apparently, it relates to how Descartes had to disguise his true self to succeed.
OK—there’s a fifth thing I learned, although it isn’t as interesting as the other stuff. On the DGM Live website, the official site for Fripp/Crimson and related projects (and projekcts), Fripp often publishes a daily diary, and since March, he occasionally titles them “I Advance Masked,” and includes a picture of him in a mask. Here’s one recent example.
Trying not to overthink this, so I went with the first thing that came into my head when I heard what the new theme was.
Red, the album, released in 1974, was King Crimson’s seventh studio album, and was supposed to be the last, until it wasn’t. It is probably the King Crimson album that I listen to the most, and I still think that it is great. For starters, at that point, the “official” band was a trio, all of whom were among the best in the business—Robert Fripp on guitar and mellotron, John Wetton on bass and vocals, and Bill Bruford on drums and percussion. They were augmented for certain songs by, among others, David Cross on violin (who had recently been kicked out as a "full" member), and Mel Collins and Ian McDonald (both of whom had been in prior versions of the band) on saxophones. Also, there’s a cellist, who is uncredited, and apparently is unknown to this day.
The song “Red” and the album are considered to be influential in progressive rock, but interestingly, they are different from what other prog bands were doing at the time—Yes, ELP and Genesis, for example, were more keyboard driven, with music that was filled with classical influences, while King Crimson’s sound on Red is harder, more metal even, although there are two more “ballady” songs on the record, including the stately “Starless,” which features atmospheric mellotron washes, and numerous jazzy passages. That’s why Red is cited as an influence by artists such as Tool, Primus, Kurt Cobain, Henry Rollins and Dream Theater.
The title track is an instrumental, in the vein of the earlier “Larks Tongues In Aspic, Part Two,” and it is “one of the more muscular pieces of Robert Fripp's, in particular the deployment of open strings and heavily attacked and syncopated bass and drums underlines this aspect.” That quote is from this post, which analyzes that song in truly granular detail.
Clearly, King Crimson’s complex and challenging music has been analyzed by music obsessives, including the band members (and management). So, you can read Fripp’s diary about how the song “Red” was pieced together. Here’s a typically dense Pitchfork analysis of the album. And here’s a piece by David Singleton, Fripp’s business and production partner, about the making of Red. Or, you can buy a 21-CD/1-DVD/2-Blu-Ray box set, The Road to Red, which features recordings of many of the concerts from the tour that preceded the recording of Red, so you can, if you are inclined, listen for improvisational sections that turned into parts of Red songs. I’m not that obsessive.
I’ve learned writing these posts is that sometimes you find something that says what you want better than you can, and when you do, just copy it. This is from a review of The Road to Red:
Red managed to encapsulate all the things that defined mid-'70s Crimson: ear-crunching instrumentals like the title track; improvisation-heavy excursions into the outer reaches of rock, jazz and beyond on "Providence" (recorded live on the penultimate night of Crimson's final North American tour, included in the current box); dynamic, mellotron-driven ballads that morphed into thundering solo opportunities for members past and present via a lengthy middle section that milked the hell out of just a few choice notes ("Starless"); and two songs ("Fallen Angel," "One More Red Nightmare") that suggested a shifting direction for Crimson, with even stronger song form than on [Starless and Bible Black] but delivered with the same—or, even, more—massive weight-bearing load of what was one of the loudest, most mind-blowingly powerful power trios in the history of rock music.
Just to vary things up, though, the version of “Red” that I’ve embedded above is a live version recorded in Mexico in August of this year by the seven-piece version of King Crimson that features three drummers (!), Pat Mastellotto, Gavin Harrison and Jeremy Stacy (who also adds keyboards), along with Fripp on guitar, Tony Levin on bass and Chapman Stick, Mel Collins on flute and sax, and Jakko Jaksyzk on guitar and vocals (although not on this song). You can download it here, for free!
Compare that to the original:
As I noted above, Red was supposed to be the last King Crimson album—and it is amazing that a band that was falling apart could create such a masterpiece--but a few years later, Fripp put together a band with Bruford, Levin and guitarist/singer Adrian Belew that eventually became a new version of King Crimson. The cover of their first album, Discipline, is red.
I currently live in Tarrytown, New York, which is right next to Sleepy Hollow, and our two villages share many things—a school district, a library, sports programs and a love of Halloween. Over the past few weeks, the streets have been filled with tourists, the villages are decorated with all manner of Jack O’Lanterns, scarecrows and other ghouls. We have parades, hayrides, haunted houses, bonfires and the like. I’m glad that our local merchants are able to cash in on the craze, and people seem to enjoy it, but I think that Halloween, like so many holidays, has gotten out of control. Little kids dressed up like superheroes or princesses are cute. Drunk adults dressed up like vampires or slutty nurses, not so much. I guess it is part of our culture now to try to hang on to our youth longer and longer, and while I’m in no way advocating a return to men wearing suits and hats all the time, or women having to wear dresses and stockings, I do think that there comes a time when putting on a costume in public is just silly. Except, of course, at my college reunion. And get off my lawn, you damn kids!
Speaking of college, when I worked at WPRB, David Bowie released Scary Monsters, which turned out to be another career resuscitator for him. It had a bunch of good and interesting songs, top notch musicians, including Robert Fripp, Roy Bittan and Carlos Alomar, and it hit a sweet spot between commercial and experimental, with rock, disco and electronic influences. It was both a commercial and artistic success, and is commonly considered to be Bowie’s last great album.
Princeton is only a few miles from Grover’s Mill, the site of the alien invasion from Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds radio show, which was a Halloween trick and treat of its own back in 1938. Common wisdom was that the broadcast caused wild panic, but more recent studies indicate that the craziness was overstated. I got the idea of getting a bunch of extra copies of the album from the record company and sending some WPRB staffers out to Grover’s Mill on Halloween to hand out the albums to people. What I don’t remember is what we required before we would give out the precious vinyl, who went, and how, in the pre-cell phone era, we reported this on the air. I know that we had some sort of a remote board, but maybe one of my reader/friends will have a better memory.
I do remember thinking it was a pretty funny idea. And it wouldn’t surprise me if my copy of the album, sitting in a box in my basement, was from that same package of freebies.
It is not every day that you get to see Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor speak and then, a few hours later, get to see Supreme Guitarist Robert Fripp perform. But that was my day a couple of weeks ago. First, I attended the dedication of my law school’s beautiful new building and got to hear Justice Sotomayor speak, for the second time this year. Then, I met three college friends for dinner followed by a King Crimson concert. It was a pretty special day.
I’ve previously written about my history with King Crimson, so I won’t repeat it here. It has been a very long time since I have seen them, and to be fair, I probably would have passed on trying to get tickets except that my friend Bill offered to order them for the four of us, as part of a birthday celebration. The chance to hear Crimson again with some old friends, and without having to go through the trouble of actually trying to order the tickets was irresistible.
Our theme for the next two weeks is Musical Chameleons—artists whose sound has changed over their career, and King Crimson certainly qualifies (but this does not). During the concert the other night, between some of the songs, they played recorded excerpts from interviews, manipulated to mock the interviewers. I actually found that to be a mean thing for them to have done. If you don’t want to be interviewed, don’t do interviews. And as someone who has interviewed musicians, especially ones that I liked, it is hard to do without asking some bad questions, and I thought that highlighting a few clinkers was, at best, uncharitable. I suspect Mr. Fripp would not like it if a DJ found some miscues during his performances, and played a loop of them. But I digress. One of the interview snippets essentially asked Fripp about the changing sound of Crimson over the decades, and he responded simply that was because “there were different men in the band.”
To some degree, that does explain the varied sounds that have been released under the King Crimson name. The orthodox canon identifies eight separate lineups for the band (with only Fripp as a constant), but even that is an approximation, because during many of these periods there was still a revolving door. Click on the links throughout this post to get a sense of the variety of music released under the Crimson banner.
The original lineup produced the seminal In The Court of the Crimson King, and two other albums that are generally in the prog-rock mode, although with elements of metal, jazz and classical music mixed in. The video above is an under 3 minute, very folk/prog tune, from album three, Lizard (which, in fact, features a very different lineup than the prior two albums, so, maybe this is lineup 1A). The second lineup, a short-lived and misbegotten collection that included Ian Wallace and Boz Burrell, released only one studio album, Islands, which was even more influenced by free jazz, but also somehow included some rootsy rock, Beatle-esque harmonies and strings. Mark III, though, was a return to quality, and their studio output, Larks’ Tongue In Aspic, Starless and Bible Black and Red represented what may be the best Crimson ever. Fripp’s angular guitar, Bill Bruford’s brilliant drumming and John Wetton’s powerful bass and singing (along with excellent contributions from other musicians including percussionist Jamie Muir, violinist David Cross and reedman Mel Collins) resulted in a sound that contrasted harsh loud sections with beautiful, quiet ones.
For the first time, after this group disbanded, Fripp declared King Crimson to be over, and he went off to other projects. But after his collaboration with guitarist/vocalist Adrian Belew, Bruford and bass/Chapman Stick player Tony Levin, initially to be called “Discipline,” played some gigs, they decided that they should be King Crimson, Mark IV. This quartet, without changes, released three albums, the best of which was the first, Discipline, featuring an interesting mix of Fripp and Belew’s sometimes interlocking and other times screaming guitars, Bruford’s drumming, often eschewing cymbals, Levin’s unique bass and Chapman Stick, and Belew’s David Byrne-influenced singing. I saw this lineup during 1982 at Rutgers, at Princeton and again at the Pier in New York. And possibly again at the Pier in 1984, but maybe not—after all these years, memories begin to fade. By the end of 1984, this group, unequaled in Crimson stability, disbanded.
It was not until 1994 that Fripp reformed the band, at Belew’s request. After a bit of personnel shuffling, the fifth incarnation of King Crimson coalesced, featuring Fripp, Belew, Levin, Bruford, Trey Gunn, a second Chapman Stick player (and later Warr guitarist) and Pat Mastellotto as a second drummer. This sextet toured and released a few albums and EPs, with a sound that was a mix of the Discipline-era band, with the harsher elements of Red, and industrial and electronic elements. The “double trio” fractured into a series of smallergroups, called “ProjeKcts” to experiment with different sounds. At the end of the ProjeKcts period, Belew, Fripp, Gunn, and Mastelotto reformed as the Mark VI lineup, and released the difficult, dense and almost alt-metal The ConstruKction of Light and a second, more experimental sounding album, The Power to Believe. Following yet another hiatus, a seventh lineup, with Porcupine Tree drummer Gavin Harrison added to the quartet, played some shows, adding a heavier percussion sound to older songs, but released no studio albums.
Fripp, who had become very negative about the music business, rebuffed Belew’s attempts to again re-form Crimson, as did Bruford, who didn’t want to try, and fail, to recreate their prior glory. But apparently, the concept of King Crimson is irresistible to Fripp, who slowly morphed a number of other projects into a new, eighth band, featuring Fripp, Levin, Mel Collins, from the earlier years, three drummers, Mastelotto, Harrison and Bill Rieflin, who has played with bands as diverse as R.E.M. and Ministry and guitarist/singer Jakko Jakszyk, who played with Crimson alumni bands and Fripp.
And that is the group that I heard the other night, which was also a reunion for me and my friends, who had all seen the band together back in 1982.
The show was incredible, although for much of it, especially the beginning, I found myself appreciating what they were doing on a more intellectual than emotional level. Part of it, I think, was that the band was arrayed in a very unorthodox way—one that was very different from any prior King Crimson lineup, or, for that matter, any band that I had ever seen. The three drummers were in front, and the other four musicians were in a row, on a riser, behind them. Fripp sat in one corner, half turned away from the audience, with a guitar, a keyboard and a bank of equipment. As you can imagine, it was a percussive assault, which as a bad drummer myself, I certainly appreciated. But I really found it hard to get invested in many of the early songs, most of which were instrumental and unfamiliar. It was one of those situations where I respected and was astonished by what they were doing more than I was enjoying it.
But then, they kicked into “Red,” followed by another song from that album, “One More Red Nightmare,” and I was hooked. When they ended their set with “Larks’ Tongue in Aspic, Part Two” and the last song from Red, “Starless,” I was all in. And the encore, “21st Century Schizoid Man,” was exhilarating. I heard one guy say as we were leaving, “I’ve been waiting to hear that song live since I was 10.” The setlist covered a number of different Crimson eras, with the notable exception of the 1980s band that I loved, with an emphasis on the incredible third incarnation and a few more recent works mixed in. But through a clever selection of songs, cherry picked from various lineups, there was a unity to the sound that tied together the disparate music of the chameleon that is King Crimson.
If Phil Collins had disappeared from the face of the earth at the end of 1981, this article would probably not be necessary. He would likely be remembered as a fine drummer who ably backed Peter Gabriel in Genesis, did a nice job succeeding Gabriel as a singer for a few solid albums, was an in-demand drummer for solo albums by other prog rockers, moonlighted in the fusion group Brand X and put out an excellent solo album, featuring one truly memorable track, featured above.
But Phil didn’t disappear, and after 1981, critical opinion of most of his work began to plummet in inverse proportion to his earnings, until he became sort of a punch line. And while it is hard to defend some of his more saccharine later efforts, on the whole, his entire body of work includes enough high points—including some after 1981—to support a claim for respect, not derision.
Collins joined Genesis in 1970, after the band had gone through a number of drummers. Unlike the other members of the band, who were from upper class families, Collins was a middle class kid, who had been a child actor and model (and an extra in A Hard Day’s Night.) After his first real band, Flaming Youth (in which he drummed, sang and played keyboards) broke up, Collins answered an ad, auditioned and joined Genesis, stabilizing the position as the band gained popularity. He quickly proved to be an excellent prog rock drummer, adept in both harder rocking styles and more atmospheric sounds, and able to handle unusual time signatures and patterns. I’ve previously written about “Supper’s Ready,” and you can go back and listen to it for Collins’ inventive drumming. Here’s a later song from the Gabriel era, “Cinema Show” that showcases his drumming (even if it is not quite as good as the Bill Bruford/Collins version from the Second’s Out album).
When Gabriel left, the band reportedly auditioned more than 400 wannabes before settling on Collins, and he proved to be a more than adequate replacement. Lacking Gabriel’s quirks and quirkiness, the Collins-fronted version of Genesis gradually simplified and poppified its sound until it reached massive popularity. Collins, however, was not the only one to “blame” for this change—his fellow band members, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks also wrote the songs, and were completely on board with the turn toward the mainstream. It would not have been possible, though, without Collins’ pleasant vocals, but he didn’t stop being a top drummer. Here’s a post-Gabriel Genesis song that again features Collins’ superb drumming.
At the same time, Collins played (and occasionally sang) with the jazz-rock group Brand X, in which he displayed a slightly different side to his drumming. Here’s a clip of a bearded and hairy Collins being interviewed on English television in 1979 before joining Brand X for a live performance.
Then came the 1980s. Asked by Gabriel to play on his third (and arguably best) solo album (often referred to as Melt), Collins, abetted by producer Steve Lillywhite and engineer Hugh Padgham, used a booming drum effect, called the “gated drum” sound, which they may or may not have invented, on the song “Intruder.” It proved to be one of the defining sounds of 1980s rock. When Collins decided to record his first solo album, Face Value, he brought in Padgham as co-producer, and the gated drum sound was used to great effect in, particularly, “In the Air Tonight,” which still holds up as a great song. The rest of Face Value is also pretty good and quirky, and Collins makes good use of a horn section and some old school R&B arrangements.
Face Value was a critical and commercial success. Later in 1981, Genesis released probably its last good album, Abacab, which used both the gated drum sound and horns. And while there were the occasional good songs on later Genesis albums, and Collins solo albums, at this point, the dross began to outweigh the quality. Collins’ involvement with Brand X also ended at about this time, and, for all intents and purposes, Collins became a smooth pop musician, with most of the rough and interesting edges gone.
In an article in the New Musical Express a few years ago, prompted by Collins’ (now-rescinded) announcement of his retirement from music, titled “Is it Time We All Stopped Hating Phil Collins?” Tim Chester noted that while Collins is “responsible for some of the cheesiest music ever committed to acetate,” this "obscures some of his most genius contributions to music.”
So, go listen to the pre-1981 Collins (and the occasional bit of latter-day quality), and enjoy some excellent, interesting drumming, fine singing, and pretty good songwriting. And let the haters hate.
Robert Fripp has stated that Daryl Hall had the best set of pipes of anyone he had ever worked with. This from a guy who has worked with Bowie, The Roches, Greg Lake and John Wetton, not to mention Peter Gabriel, Jon Anderson and Adrian Belew. That Fripp and Hall collaborated, though, seems pretty bizarre, especially back in 1977. Maybe overselling it a bit, Allmusic refers to it as “what must be the most bizarre coupling ever.” Hall was best known as a blue-eyed soul pop hitmaker, coming off of “Sara Smile,” “She’s Gone” and “Rich Girl.” Fripp was recognized as the mastermind of King Crimson, inventor of the oddly compelling Frippertronics tape loop sound, collaborator with the artsy Brian Eno and provider of edgy guitar for the likes of Gabriel and Bowie.
And yet, the two musicians apparently clicked. Hall, looking to expand his horizons, and Fripp, impressed by Hall’s voice, decided to work together. Fripp envisioned a trilogy—a solo album featuring Hall (and others) on vocals (which became Exposure), an album with Gabriel (which became his second album, better known as Scratch) and Hall’s album, Sacred Songs. Hall’s record company, though, was incredibly leery of the whole thing, concerned that he was embarked on a career destroying jaunt toward the uncommercial avant-garde. So ultimately the record company behaved stereotypically, blocking Fripp from using Hall’s vocals on more than two songs on Exposure (Fripp was forced to re-record the songs with Peter Hammill and Terre Roche), and locking Sacred Songs in the vault for three years. They pretty much did everything short of twirling their mustaches and laughing evilly.
While Sacred Songs languished unreleased, karma intervened, and Hall and Oates’ releases during this time were generally unsuccessful. Hall and Fripp began to leak the tapes of Sacred Songs, which resulted in a campaign to have it released, and when it was, in 1980, it actually sold reasonably well. And the critical response was rapturous.
So, what’s the deal with the album? Despite my skepticism about Hall, listening to Sacred Songs back in 1980, I recall being blown away by Hall’s voice, and finding that the unusual collaboration really worked. I had been conditioned, I guess, by my love for The Roches' debut album, another unexpected collaboration between the folky Roche sisters and Fripp. Fripp, as producer, had pulled performances from Hall that added a bit of edge and immediacy that his more overproduced and slick hits were missing. And Fripp’s interesting guitar parts somehow meshed with the overdubbed contributions from Hall’s regular band. But the album is still, for the most part, a pop album, but an intelligent one (albeit one with the occasional Frippertronic interlude).
“Something in 4/4 Time” has always seemed like the spiritual heart of the album. It starts off sounding pretty poppy, a jaunty tune with a nice piano part. Hall’s voice sounds pretty much as you remember from top-40 radio, but maybe with more of an edge. And you realize that he is singing about being forced to write easily digestible songs for the masses. Then the pop stops, and Fripp jumps in with a signature sinuous guitar solo, before the pop returns, and Hall’s voice soars into falsetto. It is the whole Sacred Songs experience in four and a half minutes.
Times and tastes change, and some later CD re-releases of Sacred Songs included Hall’s two lead vocals from Exposure. And in 2006, Fripp released an expanded version of his solo work, and was able to release the original Hall vocals.
Here’s the Hall version of “New York, New York, New York,” and his vocals are remarkable. Supple, but urgent, and superior to the found vocals used in the initial release (titled “NY3”).
There apparently was some discussion of Fripp and Hall starting a band together, and it is intriguing to think of what the 1980’s version of King Crimson might have sounded like fronted by the soulful Hall, instead of the more David Byrne-ish Adrian Belew, but that never happened. The "New York" song, though, did include Fripp and future Crimson bass player Tony Levin, so if Bill Bruford had been on drums instead of Narada Michael Walden, we would have gotten a hint. Instead, Hall went back to Oates (and covered Mike Oldfield’s "Family Man"). Fripp went off to reform King Crimson, and do a bunch of other guitar-related things, until his recent announced retirement from the music industry over his frustration with the business end of things.
Recently, Hall has been hosting a show on the web and VH1/Palladia called Live from Daryl’s House featuring guests from across the musical spectrum, with live performances, including this recent (Fripp-less) performance of “Babs and Babs” from Sacred Songs.
In 1979, King Crimson's Robert Fripp produced the first trio album of New York City folkie sisters the Roches. Fripp mostly keeps the production simple, focusing rightly on their signature vocal harmonies, but on the mesmerizing "Hammond Song", Fripp's guitar occasionally weaves its way into the musical tapestry.
Here's another seemingly unlikely collaboration. In 1977, Daryl Hall recorded a solo album with Robert Fripp as producer. Hall's record label refused to release it (though they relented in 1980). Hall then sang on Robert Fripp's first solo album, Exposure, but Hall's record company once again got in the way. When it was released 1979, only two Hall vocals remained on the album. "You Burn Me Up I'm a Cigarette" is a '50s rock'n'roll thowaway, but "North Star" is another matter altogether. It's a beautiful, mesmerizing (there's that word again) melding of Hall's voice and Fripp's production.
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