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I've been thinking recently about some of the game changers for me in terms of instruments I like. Some I can pinpoint while others I have no idea. They were so gradual that I can't think of anything specific.
The first time I can remember really noticing the acoustic guitar was on David Bowie's "Space oddity". Right after the "Planet earth is blue and there's nothing I can do....." bit. I was 12 at the time. I just love that bit of strumming after. I had noticed the beautiful acoustic guitar at the start of the Jackson 5ive's "Blue skies" but it was decades before it twigged that it was actually acoustic guitar.
Although I used to sing in the choir as a 10/11 year old and I used to watch the organ player and it was on numerous records I'd heard, it wasn't until I heard Rick Wright on Pink Floyd's first two albums and Jon Lord on "Shades of Deep Purple" and "Fireball" that the organ really entered my consciousness. Their performances took the organ to a new and vibrant place for me.
The title track "Fireball" was a game changer for me in regards to, believe it or not, the tambourine. The playing of Ian Gillan at the end is the most wondrous I've ever heard. I don't know why more heavy rockers didn't utilize the instrument. That one piece of playing has informed everything I've ever done on the tambourine !
Being a Beatle admirer, there were no particular instrument or vocal game changers.......except the sitar. Indian music was something of a joke to kids of my generation but hearing “Within you, without you” and “Love you to” when I was 13 demonstrated that this was an instrument with a special voice and application and later on, hearing the John Mayer and Joe Harriott double quintet albums “Indo –jazz fusions 1 & 2” really opened up Indian music for me and led me to check out Indian classical music and contributed to my long running love of the sitar.
Drums were just one of those instruments that were always there. Most rock and pop that I listened to up to the age of 16 had drums. I never really noticed them although I’d notice if they weren’t there. I really liked Ringo’s drums on “Helter skelter” but I never really noticed drumming until I heard the Rolling Stones’ “Through the past, darkly” with Charlie Watts’ performances on “Let’s spend the night together”, “We love you” and “Dandelion”. These were then supplemented by Ian Paice’s drumming on the “Shades of Deep purple” and “Fireball” albums. Both albums are packed with great drumming. The first one that really stood out was his drumming at the end of “I’m so glad”. 30+ years on, I still love it.
Going back to “Dandelion” and “We love you” by the Stones, these two songs were also {along with “Sympathy for the devil”} real game changers for me in terms of backing vocals. Looking back on it, it’s quite interesting that I never really picked up on the Jackson 5ive or the Beatles or the tons of pop and soul artists that I listened to in this regard. I guess it was partly age, also partly because I was so knocked out by the Beatles overall and they were so strong that no specific instrument or element stood out continually. It wasn’t until decades later that I really began to listen with both ears to all that was going on within their music and for that matter, the Jackson 5ive. So the Stones, not being renowned for good backing vocals, got in there first ! I adore the “Woo-woo”s of “Sympathy”, the wild, almost off key “Dandelion” and the screechy accompaniment in “We love you” {ironically, with help from Lennon and McCartney}. As backing vocals, I really noticed those rather than the pristine ones of superior athletes like the Beatles, the Seekers and various soulsters. When I listened to those early Floyd albums and Deep Purples’ debut, the few backing vocals that are on those 3 albums really stood out to me and between them and the Stones, introduced backing vocals to my radar as an important part of song arrangement. Probably around half the songs I’ve ever recorded have backing or harmony vocals. It was Robert Plant’s lead and harmony vocal on Led Zeppelin’s “In the light” on the “Physical graffiti” album that really made me take notice of the power of harmony vocals. And Plant’s powerhouse solo on “Nobody’s fault but mine” {from 'Presence'} woke me up to the sheer power of the harmonica.
Roger Waters on Floyd’s first two albums and the bass playing on Stones songs like “Street fighting man” {I later learnt it was Keith Richards, not Bill Wyman} and Bill Wyman on “Mother’s little helper” and “We love you” were the episodes that thrust the bass guitar into my stratosphere. I was also aware of Deep Purple’s Nick Simper on stuff like “Mandrake root”. These kinds of performances were instrumental in pushing me to pick up the bass and learn to play it.
I would say that “Sympathy for the devil” and “Bohemian rhapsody” qualify as the two tunes that first got me noticing the electric guitar. Obviously I’d heard electric guitar for years but it was the solos in those two songs that really spoke to me. Syd Barrett’s guitar in “Lucifer Sam” took the process further on and caught my attention in terms of riffs as did “Interstellar overdrive”. I think Dave Gilmour did likewise in “Let there be more light” and whichever of the two played the riff on Floyd’s “Corporal Clegg”.
Robbie Steinhardt of Kansas on “Point of know return”, “Masque” and “Monolith” played a huge part in turning me onto the violin as did Mahavishnu Orchestra’s Jerry Goodman on “Birds of fire”, perhaps even more so. That’s pretty significant for me because my younger sister nearly killed off any regard I might have had for the violin when she was learning to play it. A description of a cat screeching for mercy does not do her initial sounds justice ! She did improve though, thankfully. By the way, I can’t tell the difference on record between the violin and viola.
There are other instruments I love like various saxophones, mellotrons, synthesizers, flutes, pianos, double basses, cellos, too many to go into, where I have no remembrance of any particular album or song or player that provided that “a-ha !” moment. These tend to be the ones that seeped into my brain ever so gradually. For example, the mellotron had a variety of sounds so it really is only since the start of the 21st century that I’ve really focused on it’s depth and versatility. I’d been aware of it for two and a half decades but it came in many different guises, for example as the flute on “Strawberry fields forever” or the weird hurdy gurdy horror film noise on “Space oddity”. It never really had an identity of it’s own in my mind. Now it has.
Speaking of flute, it was Kyle and Stewart’s “Fisherman” that really turned me on to it, sometime in ‘87/’88. It’s a gentle acoustic song with this lovely flute solo. I’d been aware of it before, especially in jazz, but that was a game changer for me. And it was actually a kid that used to come onto the adventure playground I worked on that turned me onto the clarinet. One day, these two girls, one 9, the other 10 asked me if I’d keep their instruments somewhere safe while they played out on the swings and platforms. I asked them what instruments they had and they said clarinet and flute so we got talking and we began a music workshop which was fantastic and lasted two years. 20 years on, we’re still friends and the one that played flute has played on numerous of my pieces. Eddie, the clarinetist, doesn’t play anymore but we did some recordings together. I grew to appreciate the sound of the clarinet greatly through her playing. Tallie, the flautist, later took up the clarinet and did some great stuff for me, both written and improvised.
Things like the double bass, saxophones, trumpets and instruments in that vein crept into my awareness more as I got into the jazzier side of music. But I was trying to get to grips with and understand some of the stuff so there wasn’t any particular moment that any of those instruments went ‘Bang !’
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Originally Posted by rayc
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