Friday Bowie Thread 3: Best Sideman/Collaborator?

[maxsolomon]

1. Eno
2. Mick Ronson
3. Robert Fripp
4. Adrian Belew
5. Rick Wakeman

you'll notice Stevie Ray Vaughn is not on there.

[Radical Activist]

1. Lou Reed

Of course, Bowie was the sideman but Transformer was a fabulous album.

Mick Ronson is my next choice.

[taterguy]

2. Where's Bing Crosby?

[maxsolomon]

4. you can nominate him

this is a conversation, not a monologue

[taterguy]

7. In that case I nominate Freddie Mercury and Queen

[kwassa]

3. Stevie Ray Vaughan

and Luther Vandross

[Squeech]

5. Eno

I love the Berlin records.

What disturbs me is, I haven't enjoyed anything Bowie did after Scary Monsters. It's like he hit a conceptual brick wall in 1980.

[maxsolomon]

6. that's what happens when you get old in R n R

Bob & Neil have also fallen off since they hit 40. The Stones haven't recorded good new songs since Mick was 35 - on Some Girls.

i'm trying to think of someone who hasn't.

[Squeech]

9. How about

Bob Weir? Paul Simon? Richard Thompson? Peter Hammill? Or Frank Zappa?

I agree that it's typical for rock stars to lose their spark as they age. In too many cases I think it's just how passion seems to be an essential attribute of youth, like Pete Townshend's archetypal pillhead mod headbanging his way through "Hope I die before I get old." And Townshend, who was aware of the problem, couldn't see a way out :shrug:

I like the idea that you can write about new and different stuff as you age. I'm oddly comforted by Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, where aging rock stars admitted their passions were deserting them and yet still wrote unflinchingly about the consequences, singing close harmonies with the very people they were breaking up with. It's pathetic, but it's art.

And then the other issue is, where do you draw your line? I'd consigned Mick to the dustbin of history several years before you did-- I felt Goat's Head Soup was the last straw. OTOH, I like Neil Young as well now as I ever did (which isn't much, but at least I can get maximum mileage out of those sporadic instances where he pleasantly surprises me, which happen every four or five albums-- the eponymous debut, then Tonight's the Night, then Zuma, then Ragged Glory-- haven't listened to Living with War yet...)

[maxsolomon]

11. i still think the best songwriting of those fellows

was done before 40. as a general rule, there's no question its applicable to R n R.

odd thing is, with classical musicians & visual artists, that doens't neccessarily seem to be the case; i.e. Beethoven, Arvo Part, Monet, Matisse, Bonnard...

when did Richard Thompson write "Vincent Black Lightning"? that song makes me Verklempt...

[Squeech]

12. Richard Thompson

recorded "Vincent Black Lightning" on the Rumour & Sigh album, released in 1991 (I looked it up), so it's reasonable to assume he wrote it shortly before then. (Or maybe it's been in his trunk forever, but I doubt it. On that three CD set Watching the Dark, there's a live take of an otherwise unreleased song, "From Galway to Graceland," with part of the same melody. I assume that, having decided that he wasn't gonna use "Galway," he turned it into spare parts.)

Thompson was born in 1949, so he was 42 the year Rumour & Sigh came out, so he'd have to have written it a couple years before if songwriters really are washed up at 40 ;-)

More seriously, rock is pretty much unique among musical forms for not prizing its older exemplars. As you point out, classical composers are expected to improve with age, and certainly I think one of the great tragedies of American culture is George Gershwin's death at 40. Likewise jazzmen, likewise folkies, likewise blues, soul, C&W, bluegrass, even polka for all I can see. It's just that rock has so much of its identity tied up in the idea of being the sound of youth culture that it can't seem to see the advantage of trying to express mature ideas (or appeal to mature audiences, like for example myself at age 53-- we're not a negligible demographic, and now that the kids have grown, we might even have some disposable income!).

[tigereye]

14. how about Patti Smith?

well past 40? Do you think this applies to women rockers as well? (fewer of them, having somewhat of a different philosophical and musical style, and perhaps less affected by the "passionate 40" cut-off) ;)

[no name no slogan]

8. Nobody else likes Ronson?

Bowie made his definitive albums when he was working with Ronson. C'mon people, show the love for the late, great Mick Ronson!

[warrens]

10. Ronno, no question

Eno a strong second.

[XNASA]

13. 1. Tony Visconti

2. Mike Garson
3. Brian Eno

[tigereye]

15. mmm I'm torn between Eno and Ronson