The musician who made Sting give up playing guitar: “I have to change my career”
The key behind every single move Sting ever made was about exploring what music could do.
The Police was a firm foundation for him to stand on when he first began crafting songs, but after they disbanded in the early 1980s, Sting wasn’t about to spend the rest of his solo career making the odd tune and counting his money. He was going to keep searching for music that turned him on, but when looking at some of the greatest artists of his time, he understood that some milestones were forever out of reach.
Given the people that he worked with, though, it didn’t seem like too many ideas were outside of his wheelhouse or anything. By the end of his days with the power trio, they were already working on songs that borrowed heavily from jazz, and when he had people like Vinnie Colaiuta on drums, it seemed like there was no limit to what the groove was going to sound like whenever he picked up the bass.
But for someone who earned their chops as a singer-songwriter, it’s curious to see Sting choose the bass as his instrument of choice. There had been virtuosos both before and after him like Jack Bruce and Jaco Pastorius, but holding down the low end was never known to be the coolest instrument in the world compared to strumming away on a guitar. The six-string was the more accepted way to be a songwriter, but Sting already had his work cut out for him in that field.
Since The Police broke out in the late 1970s, every other artist on the charts was already known for having a guitar in their hands or sitting behind a piano. Everyone from Joni Mitchell to Cat Stevens to Billy Joel were used to making the best songs possible whenever they walked into the studio, but even if Sting was able to play that beautiful guitar picking part that eventually turned up on ‘Shape of My Heart’, he was no match for what James Taylor could do.
Being accepted as the first signing by The Beatles is already enough to solidify Taylor’s place in history, but a lot of his genius stems from how he plays guitar. Not all of his picking patterns stand out as massive works of genius or anything, but it’s near-impossible to nail his touch when looking at how he constructed ‘Caroline In My Mind’ or the beautiful opening passage at the beginning of ‘Fire and Rain’.
So for Sting, any chance of him trying to make that kind of impact was practically a lost cause, saying, “I’m a budding songwriter. At least I think I am. I want to see what all the fuss is about. Within four bars, I realize he’s a virtuoso of the guitar. He starts to sing in this soft, rich baritone. I think, I have to change my career. I’ll become a bass player in a punk band.” Even if he felt inferior, that didn’t exactly give Sting the motivation to put the instruments down.
This was his way of communicating with the world, and since the bass on the first Police songs didn’t need to be too technical, he could focus on making those massive vocal leaps every single time he played. It was going to be hard trying to balance the rhythm section and the melodic section at the same time, but Sting managed to make the whole thing look easy whenever he sang ‘Roxanne’ or ‘So Lonely’.
His role may have been born out of feeling inadequate, but sometimes seeing someone like Taylor can be the perfect motivator for the right person. No one was looking to make the same kind of strides that he did on guitar but if they worked hard enough, maybe they could find a way to reach their own musical magic.
