Andy Summers and Robert Fripp: the story of their records together
Andy Summers He was at the height of his fame when, in the early 1980s, he decided to collaborate with the leader of King Crimson Robert Fripp. By his own admission, he felt he was in a phase of stagnation, with his talent, “musically limited” by a band, i Policewhich had proved to be capable of producing simple and catchy individuals. He wanted a new, much more experimental challenge.
Of this story the former travel companion of Sting and of Stewart Copeland He spoke about it in an interview with the British magazine Prog.
Together the guitarists made two albums (“The Advance Masked”Of 1982 and”Bewitched“Of 1984 both for A&M) who were” the definitive ‘fucking’ to the record company “, when they proved to be sudden success.
Summer confesses that he was not a fan of King Crimson music, but at that moment he felt that he and Fripp – who both came from similar environments of southern England – had a “cosmic connection”.
In fact, Fripp’s guitar style was perfectly counterbalanced by the parts of Summers, more delicate. Their debut, “The Advance Masked”, Entirely instrumental, positioned themselves for 11 weeks in the Billboard 200 ranking. However, the A&M, the label also of the Police, thought that such an exit would hurt more than well to the band’s reputation.
“The A&M, for which the Police sold millions of records, absolutely didn’t want me to do it,” says Summers. “But they didn’t want to get me angry, because at that point I had too much power. Robert and I – he continues – were both famous musicians in our respective groups, so I thought there would be a lot of interest. Then he entered the top 60 of the rankings. It was a sort of ‘fuck’ to the record company”.
The guitarists had only two weeks to be spent in the studio together, due to Fripp’s commitments for the album “Three of a perfect pair“Of the King Crimson (1984). But Fripp says that the window of opportunity came in the ideal moment of his career.
“Working inside the King Crimson, my musical attention has become increasingly defined and specialized,” he explains to Prog Fripp. “So, what made Summers and Fripp work is that Andy was more capable of moving towards me than I was towards him.”
Summers, however, did not think that the project could lead to a “merger” and further developments. He liked the idea of polarity. “Robert and I are very different musicians,” he says. “He won’t play the blues with you. He is very good at playing in his polyritical style. I had never heard any other playing like this. So I considered these characteristics as the skeleton bones and my function was to put the meat. We were understanding it gradually.” “Robert and I had no idea what we would play,” he continues. “We simply sat with our guitars and various equipment and we started to find out what could be done between us.”
Although used sparingly, their mutual adoration for strange things was summarized by the use of the Roland guitar synthesizer in the use of the synthesizer. Summers had already experienced one in “Don’t Stand So Close to Me“, from the album” Zenyatta Mondatta “by the Police (1980), while Fripp And Adrian Belew They had brought the new technology to the world of Crimson.
As for Summers, a video has recently appeared online in which the guitarist teaches John Mayer how to play the most demanding song of the Police.
A box that collects all the collaborations of Fripp and Summers, with unpublished, is recently published.
