Ian Wallace drummer for King Crimson Bob Dylan etc passes

BEING A HUGE FAN OF KING CRIMSON THIS IS HARD FOR ME
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Ian Wallace
Drummer of unusual versatility who played with King Crimson, Bob Dylan and Don Henley
Published: 28 February 2007
Ian Wallace, drummer, songwriter, producer and engineer: born Bury, Lancashire 29 September 1946; twice married (two daughters); died Los Angeles 22 February 2007.

In a career stretching over 40 years, Ian Wallace played with the progressive rock group King Crimson and its 21st Century Schizoid Band spin-off as well as touring and recording with Bob Dylan, Jackson Browne, Tim Buckley, Don Henley, Alexis Korner, Alvin Lee, Steve Marriott, Graham Nash, Bonnie Raitt and Warren Zevon.

One of the drummers most in demand in the rock era, Wallace could play any style of music, from rockabilly to jazz, and demonstrated his versatility when appearing on over 100 albums by the likes of Badfinger, Billy Burnette, Larry Coryell, Rodney Crowell, Johnny Hallyday, David Lindley, Stevie Nicks, Roy Orbison, the Quireboys, the Traveling Wilburys and Ron Wood.

Born in Bury, Lancashire, in 1946, Wallace was bitten by the rock'n'roll bug at an early age and formed the Jaguars, a four-piece beat group, with friends while still at Bury Grammar School. They played gigs around Bury and came across the Warriors, a six-piece band from neighbouring Accrington led by one Johnnie Anderson - who went to front Yes as Jon Anderson - and his older brother Tony.

Wallace had passed his GCE exams and got a job as a clerk with the NHS but, when the Warriors lost their drummer just after signing a recording contract with Decca in April 1964, and asked him to join them and turn professional, he jumped at the chance. They recorded one single entitled "You Came Along" and played gigs up and down the country and had long residencies at clubs in Germany and Denmark. "Six sets a night, every night, and nine on weekends. This is where I truly learnt to play the drums," recalled Wallace, who also spent several months in Copenhagen with Big Sound, a soul group from Manchester working throughout Scandinavia.

By 1968, he was back in the UK with Big Sound and living in cramped circumstances in London. "Six of us living in one room in the same house as some of Yes. I actually did a gig with Yes when their drummer at the time got sick, and they offered me the gig but I turned it down," said Wallace, who would later precede that very drummer, Bill Bruford, behind the kit in King Crimson.

In the late Sixties, Wallace backed chart acts such as Sandie Shaw, the Marbles, Billy J. Kramer and Lou Christie and toured with the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and Viv Stanshall's Big Grunt:

Viv promptly had a nervous breakdown so I jumped ship and joined Neil Innes' band the World. We did one album, Lucky Planet, and were gigging when Robert Fripp asked me to join King Crimson.

After releasing their stunning In the Court of the Crimson King début and playing 80 concerts in 1969, the original line-up of King Crimson had broken up and Fripp and the lyricist Pete Sinfield had struggled to maintain any sort of cohesion through the next two albums, In the Wake of Poseidon and Lizards. In fact, King Crimson hadn't played live again until Fripp and saxophonist Mel Collins drafted Wallace and singer Boz Burrell - who picked up a bass guitar and never looked back, later joining Bad Company - to form the fourth incarnation of the group, which débuted with four gigs at the Zoom Club in Frankfurt in April 1971.

The following month, they toured the UK, and played Hyde Park in September, before going to the United States on two separate occasions, though the near-dictatorial behaviour of Fripp almost forced the other three musicians to walk out in January 1972, just after the release of Islands, the only studio album they recorded.

Wallace, Collins and Burrell did stay on for another three months but the tension between them and the band's leader can clearly be heard on Earthbound, the live album drawn from tapes of the US concerts they played in February, March and April 1972, which were recorded from the mixing board on a portable Ampex stereo cassette deck the drummer had bought. With Sinfield treating the group's live sound through a VCS3 synthesiser, the distorted version of "21st Century Schizoid Man" in particular was a portent of grunge things to come, while Wallace's solo on "Groon" - processed via the VCS3 for effect - shows why Phil Collins would later name him as his favourite drummer.

"After the restraints were lifted whilst we continued to fulfil our contractual obligations," recalled Wallace,

Mel and I and Robert too, were able to fly off in all kinds of weird and wonderful directions, knowing that Boz wouldn't move, anchoring our base, allowing us to always be able to return to the One. That is an essential part of improvisation.

When Earthbound was eventually issued in June 1972, Wallace, Collins and Burrell had already joined Alexis Korner and Peter Thorup in Snape. For the next four years, the drummer freelanced with Korner, Alvin Lee, Labi Siffre, Streetwalkers and Steve Marriott's All Stars.

At the end of 1976, after finishing a US tour with Marriott, Wallace stayed on in Los Angeles to further his career. Told by Joan Baez's manager that Bob Dylan was auditioning drummers, he went along and got the gig, playing on the Street Legal album and touring with the singer-songwriter throughout 1978, an experience documented on the At Budokan live album issued the following year:

It was a very hedonistic time. Bob hadn't quite found religion, it was the year before all that went down and we all partied hard! Plus we had our own plane in the States, and our own train in Europe. First class all the way.

Wallace had a second spell backing Dylan in the early Nineties and also drummed on the Traveling Wilburys' hit single "Handle With Care" in 1988, an occasion he loved recalling:

Jeff Lynne called me one morning to ask if I was available to do a session. Seems that he, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison and George Harrison were all hanging out at Bob Dylan's house in Point Dume and had written a song to use as a B-side for a European single for George. It had a drum machine on it but it needed spicing up with some drum fills and could I go over that afternoon to Quincy Jones' studio to play said fills. Of course I said yes and did that exact thing, playing tom fills on the song, "Handle With Care". Mike Campbell was also there adding guitar parts. The only person that wasn't there was Dylan. When George took the finished song to Warner Brothers, they said it would be ridiculous to waste this as a B-side and how about doing more and putting an album out? And so the Traveling Wilburys were born.

I never did get paid for that session. At least,

in cash. But I had spent part of my honeymoon at George's place in Maui and I do have a Traveling Wilburys platinum album on my studio wall, so I think that's payment enough!

In the late Nineties, Wallace relocated to Nashville, basing himself there for several years, and becoming one of the most popular British expats in Music City, USA. Looking back on his time in the music industry, which included tours and sessions with David Lindley and El Rayo-X, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Don Henley (for three tours), Jackson Browne and Procol Harum, and an unusual engagement as one of several drummers performing at the World Cup USA 94 final at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Wallace reflected, "I think I've remained friends with just about everyone I've worked with."

He released his first solo album, Happiness With Minimal Side Effects, in 2003. That year, he replaced the drummer Michael Giles and joined the King Crimson alumni Mel Collins, Ian McDonald and Peter Giles, along with Jakko M. Jaksyk, in the 21st Century Schizoid Band.

A drummer with an unusual style since he was tall, left-handed and had long, powerful arms, Wallace was held in high esteem by everyone he worked with. Don Henley, in particular, told Modern Drummer magazine,

I like the way Ian plays. He plays simply, although he can get very complex. He can play jazz very well. He's one of the few drummers I know who doesn't rush. I just like his style. He's also very good at programming. He's a hell of a nice guy and a hell of a drummer.

Wallace loved cooking, keeping up with the results of Liverpool Football Club, and hanging out with other drummers such as Peter Erskine, Jim Keltner and Earl Palmer. When asked what was most difficult about playing so many different genres of music, Wallace said easily,

The ability to convey a musical idea with one note instead of a thousand. If you want something to be real, then it's all difficult unless you are in the "zone". And getting there is the hardest thing in the world because that's up to God.

Pierre Perrone

Boz Burrell Bassist for King Crimson and Bad Company dead at age 60

When I was writing my biography of King Crimson back in 1999, Id been pleasantly surprised by how many of the ex-members were keen to talk to me about their time with the band. Even the couple who at first were reluctant eventually agreed to talk. The one person who declined to talk was Boz Burrell.

He was always polite when I rang him at his home. Sometimes his wife would answer and she would say Oh hang on, he s just out playing some golf. I will just go and get him. My head would immediately fill with the image of Boz in those Pringle sweaters and the ludicrous slacks. It somehow did not fit the image of the hard-drinking, hard rocking blues and jazz loving singer who had joined Crimson as a brief stopping point on his way to global success with Bad Company.

I think I spoke to him three times in total. On each occasion he d politely enquire how the book was progressing. Sometimes I would tell a little of what someone had said, hoping it would spur him into a response but Boz was too seasoned a pro to be caught like that. Instead he would offer neutral comments; We ll it might have been like that but, you know I can not really remember was about as far as he would be drawn.

Only on once or twice did he offer an opinion but it was strictly off the record and most definitely non-attributable. He was always struck me as affable and courteous and I felt sure that if I kept up with the calls, he would have relented and talked on the record.

Everyone from Crimson who had an association with Boz that I talked to Dik Fraser, Robert Fripp, Peter Sinfield, Mel Collins and Ian Wallace all had good things to say about him. Both Mel and Ian were particular defensive about their ex-band mate, feeling he had been unfairly maligned by certain sections of the Crimson fanbase.

It was not until the release of material through the King Crimson Collectors Club and more recently though DGMLive, that the reputation of the Boz era KC was rehabilitated, from being dismissed as a mere jam-band, and now exonerated as a group with its own distinctive identity. Certainly my own opinion of the group received a 360° turn-around after hearing the first four gigs the band played at the Zoom Club in April 1971.

Once Crimson toured the UK they somehow lost the sense of danger and adventure which is such a vital part of those Zoom Club recordings, hampered as they were by the need to bring what was for them, the ill fitting material of the previous incarnation, to the punters who were eager to hear the Court material played live.

Unfortunately, I never saw Boz with Crimson, having missed them at Newcastles City Hall by a matter of days. There was a compensation of sorts when Bad Company played the same venue on their first UK tour a few years later.

I think we watched Boz the whole night in his red leather rock god trousers, secretly hoping that Bad Company would break into a Crimson tune. Of course, given Bozs antipathy to that part of his career, it was never going to happen. Even though we knew it deep down, we held out hope until the end of the show. "Ladies of the Road" from Islands would have been ideal but of course it was not to be.

I heard about Bozs death from Jakko, who had heard the news himself from Peter Sinfield. I know Jakko was a huge fan of the Islands line up with Bozs version of the title track being one of his favourites.

Details were sketchy. Nobody quite knew what was going on. We thought at first that Boz was in Edinburgh with Tam White. I rang the news desk of The Scotsman newspaper but they had heard nothing. I checked out the local radio station but they knew zilch.

After contacting Tam Whites agent, I eventually spoke to guitarist Neil Warden who played with Boz and Tam in The Groove Connection. Neil clarified and confirmed the sad details.


Tam was visiting Boz at his place in Spain. They were getting ready to go out. Boz had just picked up a guitar to play, sat back and died there and then in the chair, killed (it seems likely) by a massive heart attack.

As the DGM HQ team hastily prepared a tribute page to Boz, I thought it was appropriate that David and Alex had chosen an alternative mix of "Ladies of the Road" as Bozs last encore with Crimson.

REPOSTED FROM SID SMITHS BLOG

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