Discussion
Thought this was telling...Walter brought enough to a song or project as a producer that he would have been within his rights to request a songwriter's credit. I also thought it was telling that for the particular song discussed here, King in a Catholic Style off of the 1985 China Crisis album Flaunt the Imperfection, the thing that Walter—renowned guitar and bass player—brought was a keyboard riff to really tie the song together. Easy for me to forget that Walter was no slouch on keys, and did the majority of his composing, both solo and with SD, on a keyboard/piano.
"boy music"
Dammit dammit dammit I miss the man.
Thanks for that, Matt. Just a few glimpses of that sweet silhouette... but I always thought the sound on this was great , that is to say you can actually hear the base fairly clearly and he's playing 'real good for free' IMO.
You know Walter really learned a lot working with her, as he discussed often enough in interviews. But the influence went deeper than many know . One example is a lesson he immediately applied to 11TOW, which was that in many cases her demos sounded better than the tracks they came up with --- and they were working with an All-Star group to be sure . So while the tracks always sounded great, he said, there was often something lost in the process — that something usually being a spirit or a feel that was central and apparent in her demo. Their use of original demo material isn’t always apparent, since it's used sparingly, or sometimes as the basis of some very sparse overdubbing, somewhat obscuring the fact that the track is built up over a demo. But if you listen through the thing with this in mind, you may recognize (or sense) how much they relied on her first, freshest, most emotionally "clear”and rhythmically satisfying take on a song.
Of course Walter's reliance on stripped down demo-ish tracks is one of the most contentious topics surrounding 11TOW. We (Matt and I) are working on getting some material together that, once presented and discussed, will be an eye-opener for most if not all of you on that very topic. It might take a little bit of time...but I believe it'll provide a completely different angle for evaluating the album — for better or worse.
Oh, and O...gosh that makes me feel good. Wait -- not that I take pleasure in your distress. But between the lines, you two had a special relationship, I believe, and your missing him resonates. Hope that makes sense,
-- with gratitude, the Drone.
What a treat to see that again. It occurs to me now that this was probably the only time post-1974 that he played bass in a live setting. Unless someone can set me straight on that!
Tony I THINK he may have played bass (along with a few others on the CD) at one "gig"/kirtan of his friend KD (Krishna Das), shortly after that CD was released. But that would have been a couple of selections --probably10-15 minutes-- played to a couple hundred people sitting on mats .