The three musicians Sting knew he could never out-sing: “You can’t”
Let’s just be honest about this: Sting is hardly winning any awards for humble humanitarian of the century.
That’s not to diminish the fact that he’s a bona fide rock and roll force in his own right. But if there’s anything that his exploits with his old Police bandmates have demonstrated loud and proud, it’s that his own self-awarded status as king of the castle will never be overthrown, unless that castle in question were to crumble into ruin.
Yet even still, a healthy sense of bravado can only account for so much. Sting, despite some of his more egocentric tendencies, has been forced to admit defeat on certain occasions when it comes to singers who are better than him. It’s a blunt way of putting it, but the blatant fact of the matter is that there’s a hierarchy of musical prowess, and the reality? He’s not at the top.
Don’t get it twisted, though. At least in his own mind, he would probably rank somewhere around number four. That means he’s still pretty much up there, but acknowledges there are three other singers who simply cannot be beaten. And, to be fair, when that list consists of Sam and Dave, Marvin Gaye, and Otis Redding, it’s hard to argue an alternative case.
In this sense, the influence and bias towards R&B was unmistakable for the rocker. It was the pillars on which he made his musical education, and even though his own journey took him on a somewhat different path, its memory has never left him. For those three icons, they were in an entirely different league of their own.
To be entirely fair to the man, he didn’t shy away from the fact that they were the greater titans. Although he borrowed certain stylistic influences from songs like ‘Soul Man’ to his own ‘You Still Touch Me’, he was firm on the fact that he was “not interested in just copying records that were already brilliant”.
In the frontman’s eyes, there was no need for out-and-out plagiarism, because the bones of the best work were already there in the first place. “What’s the point?”, he added. “You can’t improve on Sam and Dave or Marvin Gaye. You can’t better Otis Redding. But you can twist it a little, combine it with other elements and pervert it a bit to make it your own.”
Perhaps he made that sound more sinister than it needed to be, but the point remains the same. Sting may think of himself as a god, but there are many more people who would be waiting in the wings, ready to blow him out the water in that regard. Because of that, he could only bow down in their honour.
Indeed, it would be interesting to see what that R&B line-up would make of Sting himself, the rocking maestro who has often frankly worshipped the very same ground he walks on. Would they be as lavish in their praise? Who’s to say, but they could be more smug in their own right, knowing that they were always a cut above the rest.
