Vernon Reid

Vernon Reid ( born August 22, 1958 in London) is an American fusion and crossover guitarist who is known to a wider audience as the founder and co-leader of Living Colour.

Life and work

Reid grew up in Brooklyn, New York City, on and got to the age of 15 - first as an autodidact - guitar. After a short stint with the R & B singer Kashif he teamed with Melvin Gibbs 1976, the Group Point of View. Between 1979 and 1985 she was a member of Ronald Shannon Jackson's Decoding Society, with which he also occasionally played together later. After six albums with Jackson and many tours in 1984 he founded the BlackRock Group Living Colour (initially as a trio ), on their tours guests such as Mick Jagger, Little Richard, Maceo Parker and Geri Allen participated. Subsequent groups were Masque ( Leon Gruenbaum and guests such as Don Byron and Graham Haynes ), Yohimbe Brothers ( with DJ Logic ) and Polar Bear Club. With Jamaaladeen Tacuma and Calvin Weston, he formed the trio FreeForm Funky Freqs.

In addition, Reid played on recordings with Public Enemy or Defunkt, but also on recordings by Carlos Santana, John Zorn, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Bill Frisell, Marcus Miller, Jack DeJohnette, Arto Lindsay, BB King and Tracy Chapman. Together with the guitar colleague David Torn and Elliott Sharp he recorded Guitar Oblique.

Reid sees his musical roots in rock equally as in jazz role models such as Eric Dolphy, John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman and sees himself in the tradition of black rock / jazz guitarist Ernie Isley (of the Isley Brothers), Jimi Hendrix, Blackbird McKnight and Arthur Rhames.

Reid et al the two Grammy -nominated albums " Papa " by Salif Keïta and " Memphis Blood: The Sun Studio Sessions " by James Blood Ulmer and film music produced.

Reid was honored by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the 100 "greatest " guitarists of all time.

Black Rock Coalition

Joe Gores biographical essay on Reid According fall out African-American hard rock bands from the marketing patterns of the music industry. Vernon Reid has attacked with numerous actions the stylistic stereotypes of the music business, and voice -author Greg Tate 1985, the Black Rock Coalition called the Village to life, " a united front of progressive musical and political black artists and supporters ". In their appeal they made front against "America's apartheid - oriented Rock Circus " and demanded the right to creative freedom and access to the U.S. and international markets. They argued that with the existence of "black charts ", " black radio " and " black concert promotion," a separate but unequal economic system ongoing. Vernon Reid said in an interview with the Washington Post: " The white side of the industry claiming that they do no black band on an album cover and could not sell it in the malls of the suburbs. The black side of the industry says that the black audience would not hear Rock'n'Roll ".

Disco Graphical Notes

• Smash & scatteration ( with Bill Frisell ) ( 1984)
• GTR OBLQ ( with Elliott Sharp and David Torn ) ( 1998)
• Mistaken Identity (1996 )
• Front End Lifter - Yohimbe Brothers ( 2002)
• Known Unknown ( 2004)
• The Tao Of Yo - Yohimbe Brothers ( 2004)
• Other True Self (2006)

Literature / source

• Vernon Reid in an interview with Joe Gore, in October 1984. Don Menn ( eds.): Secrets from the Masters. Conversations with forty great guitar player. GPI Books, San Francisco CA 1992, ISBN 0-87930-260-7.