|
Isaac |
||
| It is
desperately sad to hear of the death of Isaac Guillory on New Year's Eve.
Despite first news of his illness last year it is still a terrible shock.
As Phil Beer says, he was known to many as one of the greatest guitarists of our era. Certainly that is no exaggeration. A musician's musician too. He knew it and we knew it. He was the best I've seen. Those who saw Isaac perform will understand when I say that it wasn't just the fact that he played like the patron saint of acoustic guitar (plectrum between forefinger and thumb, finger-picking with the other digits), it was the man himself. Blessed with the swarthy latin look of his mother, the assertive G.I. spirit of his father, Isaac turned heads before he played a note. He commanded attention by his presence. Then he blew people away. In his mid-twenties, after a chart hit with Chicago band, the "Cry'an Shames", he became the only acoustic act on the Atlantic label, more noted for the likes of Aretha Franklin. And then he came over to England in the early seventies, the guest of Al Stewart. Here he was an acoustic guitarist and singer. But unlike some of us acoustic players he knew what he was doing (he majored at Chicago in acoustics). He was a musician of the highest calibre. He enjoyed a successful period in London as a session player with his Fender to the fore (its registered number only stretches to three figures). He was also a part of illustrious jazz-rock fusionists, Pacific Eardrum and continued playing electric as musical director for Barbara Dickson, amongst others. But he was always his own man, Isaac. He played like no-one else. |
He also
designed the interior of his transit van, a very commodious retreat to the
invited. On stage he was the glamorous, dark curly-locked American, moving from
the unbelievable Cuban-rooted "La Bamba" (sung in Spanish) to the evocative
instrumental "Dixie" segued into Dylan's "With God On Our Side" or Paul Simon's
"Late In The Evening". It was every note and every beat of the original but it
was just acoustic guitar. He was a technician motivated by the soul.
But then, as he hit the dark street outside the club, the donning of his army issue bobble hat signalled the moment he metamorphosised into a marine. The PA was packed beneath the Transit bunk with precision. Everything he did, he did it well. I saw him play in many venues; joined him onstage at the Cambridge Festival where he was a hero. He enthralled here in Maldon in the mid eighties and I saw him stun an audience into a standing ovation at the Edinburgh Festival. But there were two gigs I missed which I would love to have seen that he was particularly proud of. One was in the Grand Place in Brussels one summer. He followed a huge name band who had just taken the place apart. With the cheers still ringing round that magical Flemish town square he walked on stage and performed "A Whiter Shade Of Pale" on solo guitar. Only Isaac could do that. Do it right. The other gig I missed, of which I think he was proud, was in a British women's prison. "There was no faking that", he said. He never faked a thing in his all too brief life. He was for real. One of those shooting stars who, no doubt, will be famous now he's dead. This year begins one short. A man very badly missed. Isaac Guillory was the best. |
|
