Trailblazer
14.07.2005, 01:44
Dieser Herr wird vielleicht nicht allen bekannt sein, eher mehr den begeisterten gitarristen unter euch. seine band, Yngwie J. Malmsteen's Rising Force begeistert mich schon lange, mit den endgeilen dickinson style vocals und der verdammt schnellen egitarre.
The Early Years
Lars Johann Yngwie Lannerback was born in Stockholm, Sweden, on the last day of June, 1963. That same year, the Beatles had just emerged from Liverpool, England, soon to make their mark on music history. But it would be another twenty years before a lanky, tousel-haired Swede with hungry eyes would stand the music world on its head once again. The intervening years before 1983 when Yngwie J. Malmsteen was officially discovered by the music industry provided an environment ripe for the development of a musical prodigy.
The youngest child in a household that included his mother Rigmor, sister Ann Louise, and brother Bjorn, Yngwie had no interest in music as a child. It wasn't until September 18, 1970, when Yngwie saw a TV special on the death of guitar iconoclast Jimi Hendrix, that a flame ignited in his mind. Seven-year-old Yngwie watched with awe as Hendrix blasted the audience with torrents of feedback and sacrificed his guitar in flames. The day Jimi Hendrix died, the guitar-playing Yngwie was born.
Applying his intense curiosity and tenacity to first an old Mosrite and then a cheap Stratocaster, Yngwie immersed himself in the music of such bands as Deep Purple and spent long hours unlocking the secrets of both the instrument and the music. His admiration for Ritchie Blackmore's classically influenced playing led him, through his sister's direction, back to the source: Bach, Vivaldi, Beethoven, and Mozart. As Yngwie absorbed the classical structures of the masters, his prodigious style began to take shape. He continued playing for hours each day, often falling asleep draped over his guitar.
By age 10, he began to focus all his energies into music. At school, he also excelled in English and Art. His mother and sister recognized his unique musical gifts and gave him support and encouragement; his mastery of the instrument progressed rapidly, but the missing link between the formal structures of classical music and the flamboyant performance of Hendrix was supplied by the music of another virtuoso, 19th century violinist Niccolo Paganini. Watching Russian violinist Gideon Kremer perform Paganini's 24 Caprices on television, Yngwie understood at last how to marry his love of classical music with his burgeoning guitar skills and onstage charisma.
Yngwie's Trademark Style Begins to Emerge
By age 15, Yngwie worked for a time as a luthier in a guitar repair shop, putting his woodworking skills to good use. It was here that he encountered a scalloped neck for the first time when a 17th century lute came into the shop. The wood of the neck was carved out so that the peaks formed the frets. Intrigued, Yngwie scalloped the neck of an old guitar in similar fashion and was impressed enough with the results to try it on his better guitars. The scalloped fretboard was somewhat more difficult to play than a normal neck, but his control over the strings was so improved that Yngwie immediately adopted it as a permanent alteration to his equipment.
About this time, Yngwie began playing in a number of bands built around his explosive guitar style, with long instrumental explorations that tried the patience of a Swedish public more used to the pop anthems of ABBA. Around age 18, Yngwie and several friends recorded a demo set of three songs for Swedish CBS, but the cuts were never released. Frustrated, Yngwie realized he was not going to get very far in Sweden alone, and he began sending demo tapes to record companies and music contacts abroad. One such tape found its way into the hands of Guitar Player contributor and Shrapnel Music founder Mike Varney. Yngwie was invited to record with Shrapnel's new band Steeler--and the rest, as they say, is history.
Yngwie's First Recording Contracts
Built around Ron Keel, Steeler's debut album proved to be a typical heavy metal grinder memorable mainly for Yngwie's now-legendary unaccompanied solo intro to "Hot On Your Heels." By the time the album became a cult favorite, Yngwie had already moved on to Alcatrazz, a Rainbow-style band. Although Alcatrazz produced some of Yngwie's most incendiary solo flights, including "Kree Nakoorie," "Jet to Jet," and "Hiroshima, Mon Amour," it also proved to be too limiting, and the only clear course was to go solo.
Yngwie's first solo album, Rising Force (now considered the bible for neoclassical rock) made it to #60 on the Billboard charts, an impressive feat for a mostly instrumental guitar album with no commercial airplay. The album also gained Yngwie a Grammy nomination for best rock instrumental performance. Soon the honors came rolling in: He was voted Best New Talent in several reader's polls, Best Rock Guitarist the year after, and Rising Force became Album of the Year. Powered by the jaw-dropping guitar/ keyboard duals of Yngwie and longtime friend Jens Johansson, the band Rising Force blazed a trail on the concert circuit that established Yngwie as one of rock guitar's brightest new stars and added a new genre to the music lexicon: neoclassical rock.
Yngwie's neo-classical compositions reached new heights in the 1986 album Trilogy. To this day, it remains one of his favorites, both in lyrical content and musical performance. At this point, Yngwie's influence on guitar technique and composition was undeniable, although hoards of clones and Malmsteen wannabes tried to copy his style without understanding his unique musical vision. Lacking Yngwie's musicality, the clones merely sounded like proficient typists.
In the following year, on June 22, 1987, just shy of his 24th birthday, Yngwie had a near-fatal car crash. The resulting concussion caused a blood clot in his brain that damaged the nerves running to his right hand. After lying unconscious in a coma for nearly a week, Yngwie pulled through, only to find his picking hand totally useless. Afraid that his career might be over, he painfully began therapy to bring the hand back to life, impatiently waiting for the damaged nerves to regenerate. Not long out of danger himself, he learned that his mother, the main inspiration of his life, had died in Sweden of cancer. Rather than completely giving up as many people would have done, Yngwie pulled himself together and turned once again to music for his salvation.
The result was Odyssey, not one of Yngwie's favorites, but highly acclaimed for its accessibility and broader audience appeal. The hit single and video, "Heaven Tonight," gave Yngwie his first taste of heavy rotation airplay and pushed album sales just short of gold status in the U.S. The Odyssey tour brought Yngwie in contact with a new audience not made up exclusively of aspiring guitarists. By February 1989, the show rolled into the Soviet Union for a groundbreaking series of sold-out concerts in both Moscow and Leningrad (preceding Bon Jovi's Moscow Peace Festival by nearly six months). The final performance resulted in the gold-selling home video Live in Leningrad / Trial By Fire.
Yngwie in the 90's
Yngwie's debut for Elektra, Fire & Ice, reached back to the noncommercial perfection of his best compositions. The album burned with his personal emotions while showcasing the classical structures of the Baroque composers who are his heros. With this album, Yngwie was finally able to accomplish a lifelong desire to record with an orchestra; this occurs in his arrangement of Bach's "Badinerie" from Orchestral Suite No. 2, which is embedded in "No Mercy," and in the classical-inspired solo break for "Cry No More." Critically acclaimed for composition and performance, Fire & Ice debuted in Japan at #1 ("Ichi-ban") and sold over 100,000 copies on the day of its release. The album reached gold and platinum status across Europe and Asia.
Wie gefällt euch seine musik? Vor allem das lied "blue" überzeugt durch 4-minütige Improvisation (!).
The Early Years
Lars Johann Yngwie Lannerback was born in Stockholm, Sweden, on the last day of June, 1963. That same year, the Beatles had just emerged from Liverpool, England, soon to make their mark on music history. But it would be another twenty years before a lanky, tousel-haired Swede with hungry eyes would stand the music world on its head once again. The intervening years before 1983 when Yngwie J. Malmsteen was officially discovered by the music industry provided an environment ripe for the development of a musical prodigy.
The youngest child in a household that included his mother Rigmor, sister Ann Louise, and brother Bjorn, Yngwie had no interest in music as a child. It wasn't until September 18, 1970, when Yngwie saw a TV special on the death of guitar iconoclast Jimi Hendrix, that a flame ignited in his mind. Seven-year-old Yngwie watched with awe as Hendrix blasted the audience with torrents of feedback and sacrificed his guitar in flames. The day Jimi Hendrix died, the guitar-playing Yngwie was born.
Applying his intense curiosity and tenacity to first an old Mosrite and then a cheap Stratocaster, Yngwie immersed himself in the music of such bands as Deep Purple and spent long hours unlocking the secrets of both the instrument and the music. His admiration for Ritchie Blackmore's classically influenced playing led him, through his sister's direction, back to the source: Bach, Vivaldi, Beethoven, and Mozart. As Yngwie absorbed the classical structures of the masters, his prodigious style began to take shape. He continued playing for hours each day, often falling asleep draped over his guitar.
By age 10, he began to focus all his energies into music. At school, he also excelled in English and Art. His mother and sister recognized his unique musical gifts and gave him support and encouragement; his mastery of the instrument progressed rapidly, but the missing link between the formal structures of classical music and the flamboyant performance of Hendrix was supplied by the music of another virtuoso, 19th century violinist Niccolo Paganini. Watching Russian violinist Gideon Kremer perform Paganini's 24 Caprices on television, Yngwie understood at last how to marry his love of classical music with his burgeoning guitar skills and onstage charisma.
Yngwie's Trademark Style Begins to Emerge
By age 15, Yngwie worked for a time as a luthier in a guitar repair shop, putting his woodworking skills to good use. It was here that he encountered a scalloped neck for the first time when a 17th century lute came into the shop. The wood of the neck was carved out so that the peaks formed the frets. Intrigued, Yngwie scalloped the neck of an old guitar in similar fashion and was impressed enough with the results to try it on his better guitars. The scalloped fretboard was somewhat more difficult to play than a normal neck, but his control over the strings was so improved that Yngwie immediately adopted it as a permanent alteration to his equipment.
About this time, Yngwie began playing in a number of bands built around his explosive guitar style, with long instrumental explorations that tried the patience of a Swedish public more used to the pop anthems of ABBA. Around age 18, Yngwie and several friends recorded a demo set of three songs for Swedish CBS, but the cuts were never released. Frustrated, Yngwie realized he was not going to get very far in Sweden alone, and he began sending demo tapes to record companies and music contacts abroad. One such tape found its way into the hands of Guitar Player contributor and Shrapnel Music founder Mike Varney. Yngwie was invited to record with Shrapnel's new band Steeler--and the rest, as they say, is history.
Yngwie's First Recording Contracts
Built around Ron Keel, Steeler's debut album proved to be a typical heavy metal grinder memorable mainly for Yngwie's now-legendary unaccompanied solo intro to "Hot On Your Heels." By the time the album became a cult favorite, Yngwie had already moved on to Alcatrazz, a Rainbow-style band. Although Alcatrazz produced some of Yngwie's most incendiary solo flights, including "Kree Nakoorie," "Jet to Jet," and "Hiroshima, Mon Amour," it also proved to be too limiting, and the only clear course was to go solo.
Yngwie's first solo album, Rising Force (now considered the bible for neoclassical rock) made it to #60 on the Billboard charts, an impressive feat for a mostly instrumental guitar album with no commercial airplay. The album also gained Yngwie a Grammy nomination for best rock instrumental performance. Soon the honors came rolling in: He was voted Best New Talent in several reader's polls, Best Rock Guitarist the year after, and Rising Force became Album of the Year. Powered by the jaw-dropping guitar/ keyboard duals of Yngwie and longtime friend Jens Johansson, the band Rising Force blazed a trail on the concert circuit that established Yngwie as one of rock guitar's brightest new stars and added a new genre to the music lexicon: neoclassical rock.
Yngwie's neo-classical compositions reached new heights in the 1986 album Trilogy. To this day, it remains one of his favorites, both in lyrical content and musical performance. At this point, Yngwie's influence on guitar technique and composition was undeniable, although hoards of clones and Malmsteen wannabes tried to copy his style without understanding his unique musical vision. Lacking Yngwie's musicality, the clones merely sounded like proficient typists.
In the following year, on June 22, 1987, just shy of his 24th birthday, Yngwie had a near-fatal car crash. The resulting concussion caused a blood clot in his brain that damaged the nerves running to his right hand. After lying unconscious in a coma for nearly a week, Yngwie pulled through, only to find his picking hand totally useless. Afraid that his career might be over, he painfully began therapy to bring the hand back to life, impatiently waiting for the damaged nerves to regenerate. Not long out of danger himself, he learned that his mother, the main inspiration of his life, had died in Sweden of cancer. Rather than completely giving up as many people would have done, Yngwie pulled himself together and turned once again to music for his salvation.
The result was Odyssey, not one of Yngwie's favorites, but highly acclaimed for its accessibility and broader audience appeal. The hit single and video, "Heaven Tonight," gave Yngwie his first taste of heavy rotation airplay and pushed album sales just short of gold status in the U.S. The Odyssey tour brought Yngwie in contact with a new audience not made up exclusively of aspiring guitarists. By February 1989, the show rolled into the Soviet Union for a groundbreaking series of sold-out concerts in both Moscow and Leningrad (preceding Bon Jovi's Moscow Peace Festival by nearly six months). The final performance resulted in the gold-selling home video Live in Leningrad / Trial By Fire.
Yngwie in the 90's
Yngwie's debut for Elektra, Fire & Ice, reached back to the noncommercial perfection of his best compositions. The album burned with his personal emotions while showcasing the classical structures of the Baroque composers who are his heros. With this album, Yngwie was finally able to accomplish a lifelong desire to record with an orchestra; this occurs in his arrangement of Bach's "Badinerie" from Orchestral Suite No. 2, which is embedded in "No Mercy," and in the classical-inspired solo break for "Cry No More." Critically acclaimed for composition and performance, Fire & Ice debuted in Japan at #1 ("Ichi-ban") and sold over 100,000 copies on the day of its release. The album reached gold and platinum status across Europe and Asia.
Wie gefällt euch seine musik? Vor allem das lied "blue" überzeugt durch 4-minütige Improvisation (!).