It's unlikely that when they made their first records, any of the members of World Classic Rockers - a band of veteran musicians mostly in their late 50s or early 60s - thought they would still be playing rock for a living three to four decades later.
Guitarist Michael Monarch, a founder member of Steppenwolf, says he wasn't thinking as far ahead as next week when the band cut the classic proto heavy metal biker anthem Born To Be Wild, released in 1968. "In the 60s you didn't think much about the future. It was live now and the future will look after itself," he says.
It's hard to look at a Harley-Davidson motorcycle without recalling the opening chords of that song, but as Monarch remembers it, the band didn't even know they had a hit on their hands. "I don't think the record company knew what to do with the band. We knew Born To Be Wild was a good song, but that was not what they released first. That was a weird song called The Ostrich, which didn't do very well.
Then they released a cover song that we did on that album written by Don Covay called Sookie Sookie, and that did get some air play. We were out on tour, and then they released Born To Be Wild and it all started to happen for us," he says.
Almost 30 years later motorbikes were indirectly responsible for the formation of World Classic Rockers, which has a variable lineup, composed of former members of well-known bands from the 1960s to the 90s. The rockers are making their Hong Kong debut this Saturday at the Foreign Correspondents 'Club's annual charity ball.
In 1995 former Steppenwolf bassist Nick St Nicholas was asked to put together a band for a charity show sponsored by Harley Davidson, playing "classic rock" to 50,000 bikers. He enjoyed the one-off gig so much he decided to put together a more permanent unit.
"I wanted to make it easy for people to know what we play. We play classic rock, so we called it World Classic Rockers," he says.
Well-known musicians to have toured with St Nicholas since include Spencer Davis, Donovan, Denny Laine and Denny Seiwell from Paul McCartney's Wings, Randy Meisner from the Eagles, and Medicine Head's John Fiddler. The longest-serving members of the current lineup are Monarch and St Nicholas.
"One of Jimi Hendrix's girlfriends introduced me to Michael Monarch, and when Mars Bonfire [who wrote Born To Be Wild] left the Sparrows which then turned into Steppenwolf, Michael came into the band," says St Nicholas.
"He introduced that kind of distortion that you hear on the opening chords of Born To Be Wild. He was kind of the inventor of that heavy metal crunch guitar. He's a very talented guitarist."
The Steppenwolf veterans aren't the only hard rockers in the band. Singer-guitarist Fran Cosmo was the lead vocalist on Boston's 1994 hit album Walk On, including the hit, I Need Your Love.
Drummer Aynsley Dunbar was invited to play in both the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Led Zeppelin, but turned them down. He's played sessions for a long list of rock bands and solo artists, and was a member of both Journey and Jefferson Starship for several years.
Vocalist Fergie Frederiksen was recruited in a hurry by Toto in 1983 after their astonishing seven Grammy wins for Toto IV, which turned them overnight from essentially a studio band into one which could fill stadiums. He sang the hits from that album, Rosanna and Africa, live, and stayed on for the follow-up album, Isolation.
St Nicholas works hard to maintain a good balance of styles within the band, and selects players accordingly. New members are added from time to time as they become available.
"We needed something to represent the south and I couldn't think of a better southern band than Lynyrd Skynyrd, so we went looking for somebody from that band, and were lucky enough to find Randall Hall. What an amazing talent.
One of my favourite bands of all time is Santana, and we're so very fortunate to have Greg Walker with us."
Most members of the band are appearing in Hong Kong for the first time, although Dunbar has played here once before with Eric Burdon.
Walker, however, wowed the Queen Elizabeth Stadium in 1983 with the sheer power of his voice, as the lead vocalist for Santana. He was by then on his second stint with the band, and had sung on the hit singles Let It Shine, She's Not There, and Open Invitation, the last of which he co-wrote.
Walker's live Black Magic Woman on 1977's Moonflower is considerably more powerful than the studio version on Abraxas.
Walker, who says Carlos Santana encouraged him in his songwriting, apparently has an Asian following, generated either by the Santana connection or his work with artists ranging from Joan Baez to Herbie Hancock.
"A lot of people from that area have gone online to gregwalker.com to get my CD, so I hope I'll be able to talk to some of them," he says.
You might expect in a band with so many lead singers and with so much rock 'n' roll history in its baggage, that egos would clash, but Walker, Dunbar, Monarch and St Nicholas are adamant that this does not happen.
"These guys are incredible," says Walker. "I love Magic Carpet Ride, Sweet Home Alabama, the Boston songs, Toto songs, Journey songs. All of us sing about three or four songs - I do Black Magic Woman, Oye Como Va, Evil Ways, and She's Not There. I've become sort of identified with that song. It's a good song; I've always liked it."
For this gig the star players will be complemented by experienced session musicians David Coyle and Mark Hoyt.
"Being with these guys has made me a better bass player, and given me a chance to see a little more of the inside of what makes these songs tick," St Nicholas says.
"There's our own sound that we've developed with all these different styles. We have our own way of playing these songs, although they have that feel of the band that they were originally recorded by - we try to maintain the integrity of what they did, and it works. We have never missed a date, and we have tremendous turnout, tremendous reviews, and tremendous fun."
copyright - Robin Lynam South China Morning Post - 09/2008 |
