“A one-off”: The one sound Phil Collins said no one could ever replace
There’s a lost art that comes with someone having a unique touch on their instrument. As much as people love the idea of plugging their guitar into an amplifier and making it scream like Eddie Van Halen, there’s a reason why Eddie is heralded as one of the greatest of all time, because of his dexterity rather than all of the effects that he used. Most people have all of that musical mojo in their fingers before they even play, and Phil Collins knew that whenever he saw one of his friends out in the wild.
Even if Collins was one of the best drummers of his generation, he only got that way from seeing the greatest at work. People like John Bonham and Keith Moon were giving master classes in how to destroy a drum kit whenever they started performing, and even when Collins was playing something more complicated with Genesis, he never sacrificed any of that power whenever he played.
It’s one thing to be a great drummer, but the melodic instruments are where people can really leave their mark. Everyone loves to call attention to the shredders of the world that can play a mile a minute, but for everyone that claims to play faster than anyone else, there are also people like George Harrison that say a lot more by using fewer notes, whether that’s the delicate touch he has on ‘Something’ or his final years playing slide guitar on his solo tours and with his Traveling Wilburys bandmates.
After all, people of Harrison’s and Collins’s generation were aware of the push and pull that came from music, and listening to Steve Winwood play, he was already a master of every instrument he got his hands on. Despite being known for his massive voice when playing in Blind Faith and Traffic, the real power came from him laying down thick keyboard lines, never sacrificing any note, whether working in his main outfit or with his friends.
Looking at what Winwood did for the George Harrison song ‘Love Comes to Everyone’ is a classic example. This song is the kind of breezy ditty that wouldn’t feel out of place on any yacht-rock record, but the minute the synthesiser comes screaming in, there’s a new life brought to the song that no Beatle could have done on their own.
And when Collins started working with Winwood on the song ‘All of My Life’ from …But Seriously, he knew he was dealing with an absolute monster on the instrument, saying, “I said ‘Well, I’ve got the synthesiser side of it covered you know I did ail that, but organ, you are such a great organist’. It reminded me of (a) how great an organist he is and (b) how nice an organ sounds. People nowadays think they can do it all with synthesisers, but a Hammond organ is a one-off. It’s like drums, you know, there’s no replacement for that.”
But as with all great musical lines, the real art comes from the player before the instrument. While Winwood isn’t flying off the hinges like he would if he had a synthesiser in his hands, he’s just as at home when working the volume pedals and making the organ bellow like it’s a living being whenever he plays.
There are many pieces that go into making a grand production like Collins was used to, but Winwood’s performance is proof that there needs to be more than a simple groove. Any drummer would want to get the rhythm down first, but sometimes it takes that one instrument in the mix for everything to blend together.
