It’s easy to imagine that serving as the lead guitarist in a Beatle’s solo band would prove to be a musical education for any electric guitar or acoustic guitar player. However, when a fresh-faced 23-year-old Robben Ford experienced exactly that, the reality was quite different.
In 1974, Ford had built up a fine reputation, having graduated from Charlie Musselwhite’s band to join fusion provocateurs, L.A. Express, who had forged something of an alliance with Joni Mitchell.
The core of the band – including Larry Carlton, the man Ford would replace in the group – had featured on her album, Court and Spark. Ford joined in time for the supporting tour, and while on the road he crossed paths with his future employer.
In the April of 1974, George Harrison was in attendance as Mitchell played a London show. The next thing Ford knew, the band was whisked to Harrison’s Friar Park mansion to record with him.
There, they tracked Hari’s on Tour (Express) and Simply Shadywhich would be released on Dark Horse by the year’s end. Impressed again with their work, Harrison carried the band through to the stage.
However, despite the fact he’d been selected to join the Beatles icon’s band, Ford has now recalled how the camp failed to stretch his abilities and knowledge quite as far as he may have imagined.
“The music was very simple,” he says in the new issue of Guitar World. “I don’t mean it in a derogatory way when I say it was mainly cowboy chords, like C, D, and G. It was just triads, minor chords, and major chords. There was nothing challenging about it in any way whatsoever, so I didn’t learn anything from it.”
Indeed, going from L.A. Express’ free-wheeling fusion splendor to back-to-basics chord progressions wasn’t going to get Ford sweating. But Harrison put a lot of faith in his talents.
On tour, Ford says there was a clear division of roles – Harrison was singing, and he was the lead guitarist. “There was an absence of input from George,” he divulges.
That being said, Ford talks of his tour under Harrison’s banner warmly. There are plenty of fond memories, especially during the moments when Harrison would pick up one of his history-steeped electric guitars and form a brief tandem with him. Playing While My Guitar Gently Weeps every night was one of them.
“I really enjoyed playing that song; that was where George and I actually traded back and forth,” he says. Although, there was a caveat.
“My style and his were so different,” he adds. “He was a very simple player, with long notes, and I was into playing a lot of notes.” Once a fusion player…
But although the playing wasn’t especially eye-opening, Ford did learn something from the tour. Gear-wise, Harrison’s picks left him for dead. The Beatle, as he often did, opted for his pre-CBS Stratocaster, and “Lucy”, his infamous ‘57 Les Paul that had been kidnapped and snuck across the Mexican border. Ford’s guitar of choice, a Guild Starfire IV, paled in comparison.
“It actually wasn’t a very good guitar,” Ford sighs. “I was still learning about electric guitars in those days.”
The other benefit the tour provided him was opportunities and reputation. Ford was a burgeoning name in certain, smaller guitar circles, but sharing the stage with Mitchell and Harrison put him on another level entirely. Suddenly, he was the new wunderkind on the block.
“I got a lot of exposure that really made my career,” Ford wraps. “Especially to have that kind of exposure at such an early age. Had I not been working with those guys, I don’t know what I would’ve been doing. I would’ve had a band of some sort, but those tours really put me in a position to be playing with great musicians.”
Buoyed by the shot in the arm those tours gave his career, Ford would record with Steely Dan, dishing out a guitar solo on Pegand became a footnote in Kiss’ winding history of guitarists when he appeared on Creatures of the Night.
He also briefly worked with Miles Davis and garnered a bunch of Grammy nominations along the way. Harrison may not have put him through the paces, but he put him in the spotlight, and Ford’s talents ensured he never fell out of it again.
Check out the full interview with Robben Ford in the new issue of Guitar World. It also features an exhaustive preview of Black Sabbath’s final show from the guitar personalities ready to make history on the night.
Issues can be ordered from Magazines Direct.
