The guitarist Andy Summers called “one of the greatest who ever lived”
Music doesn’t work in the way that a lot of people think it does. People tend to believe that it is linear, that one idea leads to another, and so on, but it’s a lot more complicated than that. Ideas overlap and contort with one another, and two strains of originality merge to create something new, borrowing from other genres, songs, and artists in order to create something that appears brand new but is actually a mosaic of what came before.
This isn’t a critique; it’s merely an observation. Many of the musicians we call innovative and original certainly are, but their ideas are completely isolated in their conception; they are the by-product of a few ideas that came before. Someone who can attest to this is Andy Summers, as his work with the police was genre-defying and yet the result of two pre-existing ideas.
The Police combined rock music and reggae in a way that resonated with people around the world. They were responsible for a plethora of different hits, such as ‘Roxanne’, ‘So Lonely’, and ‘Every Breath You Take’, which gave people insight into a new range of exciting and innovative music.
Summers’ guitar playing was instrumental in The Police’s success, and he knew how important unique styles of playing were in obtaining a sound that would excite people. He had seen people cross genres in the past to give listeners a sound that they hadn’t experienced before, and this is the kind of music that resonated the most with him.
This is reflected in one of his favourite guitarists, Augustin Barrios. “Absolutely one of the greatest guitarists who ever lived,” said Summers, “He played classical but with a steel-string guitar. And he had an elastic band wrapped around the top, which dampened the strings. There’s a three-CD set of his music that is really incredible.”
Seeing someone play classical music on a guitar that wasn’t built to play classical guitar gave it a tinny sound. After seeing that, there were no two genres that were off limits, and The Police were able to use this mindset when writing what would become massive hits.
Summers wasn’t the only musician to praise classical music’s use in a more rock setting, either. Ritchie Blackmore saw local rock bands use classical music when he was growing up, and this became a big part of Deep Purple’s sound. They would use orchestras in their heavy rock music to give it a much more refined sound.
“My interest in classical music overall is what led me in the direction of trying to combine blues, rock and classical ideas into the stylistic statement,” Blackmore concluded. “At the age of 15, I saw a band that didn’t rock up classical tunes called Nero and the Gladiators. They all wore togas, and you would think they must have looked really silly, but it worked.”
