Allan Holdsworth
Allan Holdsworth (August 6, 1946 in Bradford, West Yorkshire - April 15, 2017) was a British jazz guitarist and composer, particularly active in jazz/fusion. He is most acclaimed for his technical skill and the complexity of his compositional and improvisational work. Chad Wackerman played and recorded both with Zappa and Holdsworth.
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Frank Zappa
According to a 1989 interview Zappa named Holdsworth his favorite rock guitarist. [1]. Zappa mentioned him as one of his favorites in several other interviews too (see below).
In The Sin In Synclavier, Guitar Player, 1994, interviewed by Dan Forte, Zappa said that Allan Holdsworth came by his house once with his SynthAxe. Holdsworth used Zappa's studio for mixes of his album Road Games, which weren't used on the album afterwards, but can be heard on Tales From The Vault.
After Holdsworth's death, Dweezil Zappa wrote an in memoriam about him. [1]
Frank Zappa about Allan Holdsworth
"Well, there's one other guy whose work I know who should be included in that list who I respect and that's Allan Holdsworth." - Frank Zappa, The Frank Zappa Interview Picture Disk, pt.2, 1984.
"One of the most musical people around today is Allan Holdsworth, a guitar player who has developed a very interesting style. I find him very musical. He did a few albums for Warner Bros., but naturally they dropped him because he wasn't commercial." Frank Zappa, Lynching With Bonzai: Frank Zappa, Mix, September 1985.
In numerous interviews, you've cited the same guitarists you mentioned in your essay as the players who really moved you – Johnny Guitar Watson, Elmore James, Guitar Slim, early B. B. King ...
Frank Zappa: "Well, you'd have to include Wes Montgomery and Allan Holdsworth in there, too, I'm afraid." (...) When I listen to music, I listen to what the substance is, not necessarily the style of it. I've heard bluegrass players that knock me out, too. (...) I get the same sensation listening to Wes Montgomery. You hear Wes when you hear him play, and the same thing with Holdsworth. He puts his personality, something about him as a person, into playing, and I don't detect "watch me show off now" – there is none of that syndrome. That's the thing that is most obnoxious about current guitar, because when people are attempting to play the guitar in a competitive way, in order to do somebody else's style but just do it faster, that's great from an Olympic competition kind of a standpoint, but I don't think it's particularly musical. And since I like music, it would not necessarily excite me to hear someone playing something real fast, if it wasn't unique to the individual." - Frank Zappa On... The '80s Guitar Clone, Interview by Dan Forte, Guitar Player, January 1987.
"One of the most interesting guys on guitar on the planet is Allan Holdsworth. I really respect his playing." - Frank Zappa, Zappa's Inferno, Interview by Noë Goldwasser, Guitar World, April 1987.
Interviewer: But once something becomes stylized, it becomes rigidly marked by the public. The notion of a "guitar solo" has preconceptions placed on it, even if it's Allan Holdsworth who does it, no matter how amazing or how frighteningly original; people automatically refute it because it's supposed to be selfindulgent or "for musicians." It's almost like things become iconographic and somehow lose their value for outsiders.
Frank Zappa: "Well, whose fault is that? That's what writers do. Musicians don't do that. The average person doesn't sit around thinking about the "iconographic problems of a gultar solo." You're talking about a sociological, emotional phenomenon associated with the need of a writer to earn a living by describing something which is very difficult to write about: music. And the hardest thing to write about is that kind of music, when it's really personal, when a guy is really trying to do something, which I think Allan Holdsworth is. He's a brilliant musician. And when you start digging the thesaurus out and delving into things like "iconographic" and tacking shit like that onto stories about guitar solos, well, [laughs] then the problems begin! A guy might listen to it and go "I like it" or "I don't like it," but to have it explained to him by a writer that "we now have an iconographic problem," that's another can of worms, wouldn't you say?" - Frank Zappa in Poetic Justice, Interview by Matt Resnicoff, Musician, November 1991.
Allan Holdsworth about Frank Zappa
Do you have any Frank Zappa anecdotes? Any thoughts about him, now that he's passed away?
Allan Holdsworth: "It's really sad... you know, I mean, we all loved what he did, and I think of him, like, to me, he was like a musical Clint Eastwood; ‘cause he did everything for himself, and not only was his music wonderful; he was a great man, you know. And I don't know anybody who didn't have-who didn't know him-who didn't have the utmost respect for him, both as a musician and as a person."
Did you know him, at all?
Allan Holdsworth: "Yeah, I did! But he was really good to me-helped me out and he one time let me use his studio, you know, and there was no reason for him to do that, you know-he was just basically helping me out! But, you know, we were all, you know, really sad about what happened to him. You know, I just wish I could have seen a little bit more of him. Let him know what all of us thought about him. The other thing is, I think that "self-made guy" thing, you know, like Clint, you know... they go out and do their thing... and they say screw Warner Brothers, screw any record company... you know, they're all walking around with their fingers up... [obviously some unmentionable orifice]."
- Allan Holdsworth: An Interview (Atavachron, 1994)
