Allan Holdsworth Primer Part One

On our most recent episode of Spin It Or Bin It, Paul and I briefly discussed Eddie Van Halen’s fascination with Allan Holdsworth and the influence the guitarist had on his playing in the early 80s. We didn’t get too deep into this topic, but the Fair Warning album shows a significant change in playing style from EVH. The solos are longer, more expansive, and even a little abstract compared to what you might hear on the debut. In particular, the long legato phrasing found throughout the album reminds me of Holdsworth. If you listen to any of Holdsworth’s albums from this period, you can clearly hear why EVH was a fan, as they had quite a few similarities, and Holdsworth predated the larger shred guitar movement by an entire decade.

Van Halen producer Ted Templeman referred to EVH as the “Charlie Parker of guitar.” A distinction Paul and I discussed as well, and one that I agree with. If EVH was Charlie Parker, Holdsworth was the Coltrane of guitar.¹ Holdsworth’s style was characterized by extensive use of legato phrasing (not unlike EVH) and impossibly fast shred passages. His interest in jazz guitar gave him a wider harmonic vocabulary as well and he made extensive use of more esoteric scales, namely the symmetrical diminished and whole tone scales. Holdsworth never had a David Lee Roth, however, and the majority of his most famous work is instrumentally driven. In Jazz fusion and shred guitar circles, Holdsworth is seen as one of the greats, but since his pure rock output was so limited he doesn’t get a lot of credit in the rock world.² With that in mind, this primer is meant to introduce Holdsworth to anyone who might be interested in his work based on his influence on EVH.

Pre U.K. years: 1969 - 1977

Allan Holdsworth rode the wave of shred guitar that started to manifest in the 80s thanks to Van Halen, but he was active as a much less known guitarist throughout the 70s. His 70s period is interesting to me because it is largely characterized by participating in projects by once progressive rock giants that were currently in transitional phases and struggling with the changing tides of British rock music. There’s actually quite a lot of interesting material here, even though it represents lesser known albums from both Holdsworth and the bands he collaborated with. Holdsworth presence on a Soft Machine album, for example, is quite welcome as I always felt that a lot of the more instrumental driven European prog bands lacked strong guitar playing. Having a guitarist who could keep up with the advanced soloing from the keyboardists and horn players creates a pretty exciting dynamic on these albums that I don’t find often on the more famous early 70s albums by the same bands.

Before getting into my recommendations from this period, I want to flag Holdsworth’s first album: 1969’s ‘Igginbottom’s Wrench appropriately by ‘Igginbottom. I bring it up as historically significant, but other than that the album is largely an amateurish 60s Brit rock album. The funny thing about the album though is that Holdsworth’s signature shreddy legato style has already somewhat developed. The album has a late 60s sound complete with fuzztone guitars and a heavy blues emphasis, and then seemingly out of nowhere you have the ten minute The Donkey that feels very much like a prototype of the long instrumental jams that would come later in Holdsworth’s career. It’s pretty unpolished though and for completists only.

For albums in this period that are actually worth hearing:

• Tempest - Tempest

Tempest is on the bluesier side of the prog rock spectrum, a spinoff of the band Colosseum³ and definitely a spiritual successor musically. It’s interesting to hear Holdsworth in a more restrained mode. Unlike his playing on the ‘Igginbottom debut, he pulls back quite a bit on this album and plays more with the bluesier conventions of the material. It’s a much more conservative performance from Holdsworth, which is probably the most interesting aspect of this album. This is a good pick if you want a more traditional sounding rock album that still shreds.

• Soft Machine - Bundles

Soft Machine is a pretty unpenetrable band given their large discography and how frequently they evolved stylistically from album to album. Third is a classic and their most famous for valid reasons, but their other music shouldn’t be slept on. The album is made up of the signature Soft Machine expansive instrumentals with a mixed of compositional moments and long improvisational jams. Side one is basically one long piece while side two is made up of more short form pieces that still largely flow together. Bundles is a great example of Holdsworth augmenting an already solid band by adding in the guitar dimension. He gels in really well with the group and, had the album come out a few years earlier, I think it would be more well known and acclaimed.

• Gong - Gazeuse!

Very similar situation to Soft Machine here, Gong has a very large discography and went through quite a few changes over the years. Their most well known album is probably the overly conceptual Flying Teapot but they were another band that thrived in more instrumentally driven and improvisational modes. I would say Holdsworth fits in even better on Gazeuse! than on Bundles. The extensive use of vibraphones and the more fusion-y approach is akin to a 70s Zappa album, but the music is quite a bit headier. There’s a lot of variety here and Holdsworth is featured prominently both as a player and a writer. Don’t miss the song Shadows Of, which would reappear as the title track of Velvet Darkness. This song has that signature Holdsworth style that will go on to dominate his 80s solo albums. Again, I believe the only reason Gazeuse! isn’t considered an essential prog rock classic is the fact that it came much after prog rock’s heyday. This album is a must!

• Tony Williams Lifetime - Believe It

The next two albums on this list are a bit of a contrast from the prog fare as they feature Holdsworth as a sideman in jazz fusion projects. Jazzheads know Tony Williams as the legendary drummer who, among many other career achievements, helped revitalize Miles Davis’ quintet in the 60s when he was a teenager. Like many of the post-bop musicians who came up in the 60s, Williams turned to fusion in the 70s and Believe It is a worthwhile second tier fusion album. This album leans quite heavily into rock and Holdsworth is highlighted for much of its runtime. Not only are there several songs on the album written by Holdsworth, but in the absence of any horn players, a synth player, or any other soloist to play opposite, Holdsworth dominates. Not to diminish Alan Pasqua’s keyboard playing as he has some great solos and compositional moments as well, but it’s hard for an electric keyboard to compete with a guitar that sounds like a rocket ship.

• Jean Luc Ponty - Enigmatic Ocean

Enigmatic Ocean is likely the best known album on the list, and probably the one that features Holdsworth the least prominently. Unlike on the Tony Williams album, there are other lead instruments that dominate this album, specifically Ponty’s electric violin playing. At any rate, Enigmatic Ocean has always been an essential fusion album that gives more context to one of the greats of the fusion/rock era. Holdsworth gets a little lost in the mix here, but it would still be an oversight not to recommend this for the great compositional work and the group chemistry. Holdsworth has some really spectacular moments as well to be clear, particularly in the multi-part title suite.

U.K. and early solo work: 1976 - 1985

In the late 80s, Holdsworth started to penetrate the rock mainstream a bit more, at least to the extent that it’s possible to do so given the type of music Holdsworth played. As mentioned earlier, I believe much of Holdsworth’s success in the 80s could be attributed to a rising tide of shred guitar that was spearheaded by Van Halen. EVH’s public endorsement of the I.O.U. album probably helped in this regard as well. Notably, most of these albums feature a vocalist, and U.K. is the closest Holdsworth got to actually being a full on member in a rock band. I’m sure having Paul Williams and John Wetton in the fold helped give audiences a little bit more connection to the complex instrumental music.

• Velvet Darkness

Holdsworth’s first true solo album, which he disavowed⁴ over the years because the album is made up of recordings of the band rehearsing without realizing they were performing what would be immortalized on the album. Now the background on this album is quite interesting in itself. This is Holdsworth’s only album released on Creed Taylor’s CTI label, which was a label that typically worked with Jazz artists (think Wes Montgomery, Freddie Hubbard, Antonio Carlos Jobim, etc). In the 70s and 80s, the label became an important proliferator of jazz fusion, but it very much had its start as a pretty straightforward hard bob label. I mention this because it seems that Creed Taylor’s method of recording the rehearsal (as Holdsworth put it) was emblematic of the Rudy Van Gelder/Blue Note Records tradition of recording entire albums in one take sometimes with musicians who had never played together before. This helped preserve some of the spontaneity and excitement of a live jam session, but I can see why someone with more perfectionist leanings like Holdsworth would be miffed.

With that in mind, this to me is a classic example of the artist being wrong about their own work and Velvet Darkness is not to be missed. This album is a really fascinating document of Holdsworth in a more fusion-y/bluesy mode but still steeped in his airy compositional style. I think this album has a lot of merit with its laid back approach compared to the more produced and esoteric sounds that will be found on later solo albums. You also get more interaction between the musicians, which I find to be missing on his later studio projects. As a CTI devotee, I consider this album is a great addition to the collection and it’s awesome to hear Holdsworth in this context.

• U.K. - U.K.
  U.K. is one of the lost prog rock projects, although I have to assume most hardcore prog fans (i.e. those who didn’t jump ship when punk and metal arrived in the late 70s) are familiar with the album. U.K. was a prog supergroup consisting of, in addition to Holdsworth, John Wetton (King Crimson), Eddie Jobson (Roxy Music, Frank Zappa), and Bill Bruford (King Crimson, Yes). The group formed essentially out of the ashes of the dissolved classic Crimson lineup (the one that recorded Red, Larks’ Tongues, and Starless). They only made two albums: only one features Holdsworth and only one is worth listening to. It’s great to hear a prog band from this era being unapologetically prog in the late 70s, when the genre was more or less dead. As Genesis started to move toward pop, King Crimson was dead, and Yes was in real disarray, this album is a breath of fresh air for its time. You get the long synth journeys, odd time riffing, and multi-part epics. Side one is largely made up of a suite, with each track segueing into the next and complete with reprisals of early material. The prominence of Holdsworth’s guitar playing gives this album a harder edge and helps modernize the sound a bit. It’s also great to hear Holdsworth in more of a traditional rock band role, as far as I can tell this is the only Holdsworth album with a traditional rock band format that is focused primarily on tightly composed songs and not instrumental jams. As friend of the pod Christgau says in what I consider to be an unintentional endorsement: “it's not impressive or difficult to rock out in 9/4--it's impossible.”

• I.O.U.
  This is probably the peak for Holdsworth in terms of notoriety. Again, partially thanks to the rise of shred guitar in the 80s and Eddie Van Halen’s public endorsement. This is probably the first album most fans are introduced to when discovering Holdsworth. The lead guitar playing on this is magnificent and classic Holdsworth. You get the long legato lines, the shreddy chromaticism, impossible licks, but now it is fully refined and developed after years of experimenting. You also get to hear the guitar take more of a melodic compositional role, and here we’re introduced to Holdsworth’s signature chord melodies and his very technically challenging but ethereal sounding stretch chord voicings. The biggest thing holding this album back, unfortunately, is the singing. Holdsworth’s vocal melody and lyric writing wasn’t good, and vocalist Paul Williams⁵ does the best he can with the inherently flawed material, but it is painfully obvious that the vocal parts were a second thought. This album works best when it’s instrumental, but it’s weighed down significantly by those songs with vocals.

• Metal Fatigue
  A followup to I.O.U., this album was even credited to “Allan Holdsworth with I.O.U.” suggesting a band format. It’s somewhat appropriate, although the lineup has changed some and the group is now augmented by the legendary Chad Wackerman on most of the album. This album is like a refined version of I.O.U., and personally I think it’s slightly better. Wackerman brings a lot more groove to the music and better complements Holdsworth’s playing. The riffing and song structures also feel a little more put together than on the previous album. The vocals are still a major sore spot, but luckily there is more room for the instrumentals on here and Williams only sings on two tracks. I’m a sucker for multipart epics and there is a lot of interesting stuff happening on Un-Merry Go Round. For my money, this is the peak of Holdsworth from this early 80s period and, between this and I.O.U. absolutely the one to check out.

There is a lot of material here, so I am going to split this primer into two parts! Next week I’ll get into the more experimental later 80s of Holdsworth’s career, when he started playing with different types of instruments like the SynthAxe, as well as his more independent recording projects. There’s some really interesting material during this period, so stay tuned. And don’t forget to check out our Van Halen miniseries on Spin It Or Bin It podcast. Next week we’re talking Diver Down!

Footnotes

1. In terms of eras this doesn’t quite match as Holdsworth was both almost a decade older and part of the previous generation of rock/jazz fusion music. But in terms of where each musician took the instrument, I find that Holdsworth took the foundation that EVH brought into the mainstream rock world and helped it evolve into something much more abstract and complex. ↩

2. Holdsworth doesn’t get a lot of attention in the jazz sphere either, frankly. He seems to exist in a weird space where his jazz material is too heavy/rock influenced for the more purist jazz listener, and his rock music is a little too heady for someone wanting to simply rock out. ↩

3. Another great lost 70s prog band, I spoke about them at length in a previous entry that you can read if you’re interested in hearing more proto prog classics. ↩

4. As a side note, in doing research for this article I found quite a few anecdotes of Holdsworth disavowing projects and distancing himself from collaborators. Perhaps Allan wasn’t the easiest to work with? ↩

5. No, not that Paul Williams. ↩