Breaking up the classic lineup

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Quaco
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Breaking up the classic lineup

Postby Quaco » 11 Mar 2018, 15:06

Usually a stupid decision based in the ego of the bandleader, right? Let's think of examples!

Here is one ... Elton John dumping Nigel Olsson and Dee Murray, who not only had a great feel but also sang and arranged those great harmonies the band had. Replaced them with Kenny Passarelli and Roger Pope, who were tighter and lacked much feel. I guess it was appropriate for the increasingly funky music John was writing, but the greatness was lost.
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Nervous Ned
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Re: Breaking up the classic lineup

Postby Nervous Ned » 11 Mar 2018, 16:34

Yes, that is probably the best example. I personally love the two albums that followed Captain Fantastic. But to dismiss Olsson and Murray implying they were not up to the new direction was plain daft. Just add additional musicians to flesh out the sound surely?
Elton brings them back in 1983 after numerous so so records, but the damage was done.

Bowie was another; believing the guff that he was a musical chameleon he gets a completely new rhythm section for Let’s Dance ... He really should have been begging Alomar, Murray and Davis to come back. Queue numerous albums featuring faceless musos, all very talented but completely lacking the ability to stamp individuality onto the material.
The exception of course being Reeves Gabrels who manages to leave his ‘mark’ on Bowie’s records for the best part of a decade ... unfortunately!

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Re: Breaking up the classic lineup

Postby Brickyard Jack » 11 Mar 2018, 17:16

Bruce Springsteen, of course.

Tells the E street band to sling after his biggest album, spends years in the doldrums before triumphantly reuniting for the Rising.

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Re: Breaking up the classic lineup

Postby Quaco » 11 Mar 2018, 17:27

Nervous Ned wrote:Bowie was another; believing the guff that he was a musical chameleon he gets a completely new rhythm section for Let’s Dance ... He really should have been begging Alomar, Murray and Davis to come back. Queue numerous albums featuring faceless musos, all very talented but completely lacking the ability to stamp individuality onto the material.
The exception of course being Reeves Gabrels who manages to leave his ‘mark’ on Bowie’s records for the best part of a decade ... unfortunately!

At first I thought you were going to say the sacking of the Spiders from Mars, but I think your example is better.
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Re: Breaking up the classic lineup

Postby Charlie O. » 11 Mar 2018, 17:55

Love comes to mind. One could say that the Forever Changes line-up was falling apart anyway - but I suspect that if Arthur had committed himself to working (i.e. touring) as much with that band as he ended up doing with their replacements, things might have been different. Just conjecture on my part, of course.
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Re: Breaking up the classic lineup

Postby naughty boy » 11 Mar 2018, 17:57

It happened with most of my heroes! MES, Beefheart, Lou Reed...
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Re: Breaking up the classic lineup

Postby Loki » 11 Mar 2018, 17:58

Quaco wrote:
Nervous Ned wrote:Bowie was another; believing the guff that he was a musical chameleon he gets a completely new rhythm section for Let’s Dance ... He really should have been begging Alomar, Murray and Davis to come back. Queue numerous albums featuring faceless musos, all very talented but completely lacking the ability to stamp individuality onto the material.
The exception of course being Reeves Gabrels who manages to leave his ‘mark’ on Bowie’s records for the best part of a decade ... unfortunately!

At first I thought you were going to say the sacking of the Spiders from Mars, but I think your example is better.


That was the first one I thought of (Spiders). And Iggy with the Stooges.
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Re: Breaking up the classic lineup

Postby ConnyOlivetti » 11 Mar 2018, 19:19

Simple Minds
Breaking up the core band
Childhood friends
Sad story
And Kerr regret it later on....
And they never got back on track
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Re: Breaking up the classic lineup

Postby Muskrat » 11 Mar 2018, 19:32

BS&T firing Al Kooper?
But then, they sold kazillions of records.

I still prefer the Experience to Band of Gypsys.
Last edited by Muskrat on 12 Mar 2018, 00:28, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Breaking up the classic lineup

Postby Quaco » 11 Mar 2018, 20:15

Charlie O. wrote:Love comes to mind. One could say that the Forever Changes line-up was falling apart anyway - but I suspect that if Arthur had committed himself to working (i.e. touring) as much with that band as he ended up doing with their replacements, things might have been different. Just conjecture on my part, of course.

Listening to Four Sale recently, I wondered if the original band had just been too difficult to deal with. (Granted Arthur was one of the more difficult components thereof.) I am sure Arthur felt freed and relieved to be playing with other people, guys who could really play. Now arguably without the yin-yang of having Bryan writing songs too, maybe it wasn't quite as good. But it wasn't as bad as you might think. Seems Lee's decline had more to do with general malaise, less public/record company interest, and his own issues.
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Re: Breaking up the classic lineup

Postby Jimbly » 11 Mar 2018, 20:15

Crowded House, once Neil Finn broke them up. It wasn't quite the same when they got back together. Spinal Tap drummer issues excepted.
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Re: Breaking up the classic lineup

Postby Loki » 11 Mar 2018, 23:38

Ultravox?
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Re: Breaking up the classic lineup

Postby take5_d_shorterer » 12 Mar 2018, 00:35

Clash

The Replacements

Max Roach-Clifford Brown Quintet

1964 edition of Mingus's band

Tadd Dameron-Fats Navarro Sextet

1959 edition of the Thelonious Monk Quartet

1961 edition of the Bill Evans Trio

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Re: Breaking up the classic lineup

Postby Bent Fabric » 12 Mar 2018, 00:49

Faces - one can only speculate what could have been had Ronnie Lane not left, but certainly the others have all subsequently opined that they weren't much without him.

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Re: Breaking up the classic lineup

Postby Fonz » 12 Mar 2018, 06:44

Mothers of Invention
Heyyyy!

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Re: Breaking up the classic lineup

Postby fange » 12 Mar 2018, 12:18

Alice Cooper, after Vincent decided the name was him and him alone.
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Re: Breaking up the classic lineup

Postby Bent Fabric » 12 Mar 2018, 12:44

Some great shouts on here - Alice Cooper, Mothers, Elton John Band, Replacements, Love, Spiders, Velvets: all probably 100% unsustainable on some level (see Pink Floyd), but it's difficult not to lament the seemingly abrupt end of the original magic.

In the actual act of cooperation/collaboration/interdependence/shared space, you do get the sense that there's some basic finite feasibility to certain working relationships - one can easily look back and ask "How could ____ possibly think they'd be any good without ____", but the byzantine nature of those actual dynamics typically means that "the best version" was grinding to a halt in all sorts of other ways (so much that we don't know about one or more person's limited ability to coexist past some particular point/not self sabotage).

Still, I'm sure I look at these things as naively as anyone else - the picture of "the original four members" of any given thing (certainly, if they are all still living) carries with it some very unrealistic portent of long lost alchemy just magically kicking right back into gear. Never mind any number of factors (the good songs being long gone, the chemistry being dead as a doornail).

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Re: Breaking up the classic lineup

Postby Charlie O. » 12 Mar 2018, 14:59

I'm surprised I didn't think of the Mothers.

An interesting subset that's emerging from this discussion is bands that have ONE GUY, other than the frontman, without whom "the magic" seemingly can't be sustained - Faces/Ronnie, Replacements/Bob, Lovin' Spoonful/Zal...
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Re: Breaking up the classic lineup

Postby Bent Fabric » 12 Mar 2018, 15:53

Charlie O. wrote:I'm surprised I didn't think of the Mothers.

An interesting subset that's emerging from this discussion is bands that have ONE GUY, other than the frontman, without whom "the magic" seemingly can't be sustained - Faces/Ronnie, Replacements/Bob, Lovin' Spoonful/Zal...


I think there's dead guys in there as well - Cliff Burton seems like perfectly valid shorthand for this sort of thing.

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Re: Breaking up the classic lineup

Postby Kinkhurt » 12 Mar 2018, 16:03

When Gary Marx left the Sisters that tipped the balance completely, Hussey was a decent guitarist but too fucking jangly
to be left on his own in the Sisters. Marx was the grit and the guy who came up with those genre-defining single-string riffs
and motifs, the hooligan element. With Marx there would have been no Floodland and certainly not that absolute abomination,
otherwise known as Vision Thing.
angering the feeble


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