THE ENGINE ROOM

The unsung heroes who helped forge modern music

- Lin Bensley

This month: Allan Holdsworth

From the outset, British jazz-fusion and progressive rock guitarist (as well as violinist and composer) Allan Holdsworth chose to adopt a technique that might best be described as complex and challenging. As inscrutable as Confucius, he could manipulate the notes to make the kind of music that won him the admiration of Eddie Van Halen, Frank Zappa, George Benson, Joe Satriani and many more.

Born and raised in Yorkshire, Holdsworth was very much a product of his upbringing, exposed to bebop/free jazz at an impressionable age like his fellow northerner John McLaughlin, with whom it is easy to draw comparisons.

While he had always wanted to play the saxophone, it was through the encouragement of his jazz pianist father that Holdsworth took up the guitar in his teens and formed Igginbottom with Steve Robinson (guitar), Dave Freeman (drums) and Mick Skelly (bass).

The band was assigned to a management team headed by Ronnie Scott and several members of pop group Love Affair including keyboardist/composer Morgan Fisher. As a co-producer of their first and only album, Igginbottom's Wrench (1969), Fisher had an opportunity to study the band at close quarters.

"This was a gorgeous, unique merging of melodic rock and jazz delicacy, far from the pretentious efforts of most 'jazz-rock' bands," Fisher told RC. "The blend of Holdsworth's and Robinson's guitar chords frequently sounded like one guitar playing a massively complex Debussyesque chord on 12 strings.