CoLors*…
This is a Voyage into Sound.
inst. of change [THE ELECTRIC GUITAR]
the players
INSTRUMENTS OF NOISE.
take it to the bridge
The Original Color of Sin [BLUE.]
Living Colour
A Band Grows In Brooklyn [PT2]
Open Letter To A Landlord
1988 — Vivid
((( Ghettos Matter )))
We started the show with our man, and we’re gonna end the show with our man.”
December 28, 2001, in in Orlando, Florida @ The Disney House of Blues, announcing Living Colour’s encore, “Crosstown Traffic,” of a show that opened with another Jimi Hendrix (Band of Gypsys) classic, “The Power Of Soul.” [POST APOCALYPTIC REUNION]
Living Colour
LiIvViInNgG CoOlLoOuUrR
Vernon Reid (G.UITAR)
Corey Glover (V.OCALS)
Will Calhoun (D.RUMS)
Doug Wimbish (B.ASS)
Tack>>Head
Head>>Fake
Colors w/ Herb Alpert
Jungle>>Funk
w/ Vinx
Black Jack Johnson (w/Mos Def)
Skip “Little Axe” McDonald
Keith LeBlanc
Adrian Sherwood
Bernard Fowler
Downtown NYC
1980 — As a member of Ronald Shannon Jackson’s Decoding Society, and playing and recording with Defunkt, Vernon Reid first played in the shadows of Downtown New York City, WHERE THE JAZZ WAS ALWAYS FREE. When Vernon and his band emerged explosively with a new, musical brew of Hard Rock, Metal, Avant Punk, and Urban Funk. A Fusion of Sound that launched music into its future, realized in the outer limits of space.
[The Knitting Factory, Iridium, CBGB]
Up On The Roof
The Drifters
1962 — b/ Gerry Goffin and Carole King
((( Home Grown )))
Epic Records
1988 — (May 3) With help from the Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger, Living Colour signed with Epic Records and released its debut Vivid. The band’s rise was immediate, as it’s first single “Cult Of Personality” was a regular in MTV’s primetime rotation, and Vivid rose to #6 on the U.S. Billboard chart.
1989 — (April 1) Appearance on NBC’s Saturday Night Live was an important, high-profile presentation of Living Colour’s psychedelic, day-glo packaged, hard funk, metal attack.
Sweet Leaf
Electro Funkadelia w/ Sativa
2006 — New Jack City
((( Girls’ Night )))
yT.
Voyager
(The Gold Record)
1977 — Carl Sagan‘s Cosmic Message In A Bottle.
1978 — Saturday Night Fever
Bee Gees
Nile Rodgers
David Bowie
Stevie Ray Vaughan
Jerry Garcia
George Benson
Gil Scott-Heron
Black Wax
Gun
Rick James
Ron Carter
Living Colour (introduction)
A BAND GROWS IN BROOKLYN
BERNARD FOWLER
Hip-Hop Happens (Vanity Fair)
Original Sugar Hill Rhythm Section
1979 —
Skip McDonald (guitar)
Doug Wimbish (bass)
Keith LeBlanc (drums)
Adrian Sherwood (mix)
TACK>>HEAD (We’re An American Band)
BERNARD FOWLER (How far the Stone has Rolled)
LIVING COLOUR
LITTLE AXE
HEAD>>FAKE (1999)
1979 — Rock the Casbah
1980 — Just Say No.
1981 — MTV (THE LAUNCH) 1:11
1982 — Saturday In The Park (NYC)
1983 — Beat Street
1984 — No Sell Out (Malcolm X)
1985 — We Are The World
1985 — The World According To Mick
Bernard Fowler
Second Coming
The Rock N Roll Gospel According to Mick Jagger.
1986 — Not of this Earth
Joe Satriani
“Big Bad Moon”
“Surfing With The Alien”
Joe Satriani
Surfing With The Alien
1987 —
((( song )))
1987 —Appetite For Destruction
Guns N’ Roses
“Rocket Queen”
1988 — Vivid
Living Colour
“Cult Of Personality”
1988 — Young Americans
Mick Jagger knows a good band when he sees one. When the Rolling Stones split in 1984, Mick Jagger set out to assemble a band of young and aggressive Americans to take him on a new Rock N Roll Ride.
Bernard Fowler
Joe Satriani
Doug Wimbish
Simon Phillips
Suzie Davis
Jimmy Rip
Phil Ashley
Carol Kenyon
Jenny Douglas
Linda Moran
Valerie Scott
1989 —Black & White
International Music Award for “Best New Artist” (1989)
Eric Clapton (TINY ELVIS AWARD)
Why not a Little Jimi? (Acceptance Speech)
Chuck Berry
“Johnny B. Goode” — Living Colour (International Music Awards Performance)
“Elvis Is Dead”
Jethro Tull vs. Metallica
Steel Wheels (1989)
Living Colour
MTV
Grammy Awards
International Rock Awards (1989)
Tiny E Statues / Eric Clapton
(EC Was Here)
Johnny B. Goode (video)
Tiny Elvis? Could have been a Little Jimi.
Stone Free: Tribute to Jimi Hendrix (1993)
“Crosstown Traffic”
Steel Wheels North American Tour
1990 — Time’s Up
Home Again Naturally
Eye & I (D.K. Dyson)
1990 — The incarnation of Living Colour (Corey Glover, Muzz Skillings, Will Calhoun, and Vernon Reid) recorded two albums, Vivid in 1988, and Time’s Up in 1990. Called “more experimental,” Time’s Up exhibited a number of musical styles [jazz, fusion, punk, blues, hip hop, funk, thrash, metal, jive, electronica] w/ guests, including Little Richard, Maceo Parker, Queen Latifah, and Doug E. Fresh
An excerpt out of Time Tunnel, an out-of-print Living Colour documentary, including performance clips and interviews with Vernon Reid, Corey Glover, Will Calhoun, and Muzz Skillings, telling the story of the band from its inception, to the success of Vivid, touring with the Rolling Stones, and starting work on Time’s Up.
1991 — Of note was Perry Farrell inviting Living Colour to join Jane’s Addiction on the inaugural Lollapalooza Festival Tour, originally scheduled to be Jane’s Addiction’s farewell. That first year’s lineup also featured: Siouxsie & The Banshees, Nine Inch Nails, Fishbone, Ice T & Body Count, Butthole Surfers, Rollins Band, EBN, and Violent Femmes. Living Colour also released Biscuits, an EP of outtakes, and on the Japanese pressing, a number of live performances, including “Love & Happiness.”
After a month touring Europe, enjoying time back home in New York City, a travel-weary Muzz Skillings chose not to continue on to Mexico City, Buenos Aires, and Rio de Janeiro. Fortunately, the timing was right for Vernon to ask old friend Doug Wimbish if he might consider filling in for Muzz, helping Living Colour to finish its first world tour. Tack>>Head, Doug’s band (with Original Sugar Hill Rhythm Section mates Skip McDonald and Keith Leblanc, with Bernard Fowler and On-U Sound’s Adrian Sherwood) was taking a break after releasing it’s second record, Strange Things, allowing Doug to join Living Colour in South America.
1992 —
1993 — After completing the South American leg of Living Colour’s 1991 world tour, bassist Doug Wimbish accepted the band’s invitation to join the band permanently.
Doug’s contribution, as a writer, player, and producer, are significant in what critics called the “darker” tone of Living Colour’s third album, Stain.
Because Stain came at a time (March 2, 1993) when Seattle, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and a new genre called “Grunge” were commanding most popular attention, it was overlooked compared to Living Colour’s first two albums, Vivid and Time’s Up. Despite praise from critics and fans, both who appreciated the record’s harder, industrial edge, Stain reached only #26 on the Billboard chart, and because a guy named Jon Stainbrook with a band called The Stain filed a lawsuit and had production of Stain stopped. The record remained out of print until 2013, when it was released on disc, and made available to download.
Equal Opportunity
Living Colour
“Bi” Not the usual for a Hard Rock band.
1993 — While working on a record to follow Stain, a disappointed Reid decided Living Colour should take a break.
In the meantime, Living Colour’s 1993 looked, on television, like things couldn’t be better. They had already written and recorded a number tunes for a new record, won another Grammy Award for a cover of “Crosstown Traffic” on Stone Free, a Jimi Hendrix tribute record, contributed to two high-profile soundtracks, recording “Sunshine of Your Love” for James Cameron’s True Lies, and write and record “Me, Myself, and My Microphone” with RUN-DMC for Judgement Day.
It was something of an illusion, all the accolades were for efforts already made, Vernon, at that moment, was looking for something different. After he officially ended Living Colour’s decade-long run, he immediately went on to work on a number of solo projects, including a multi-tune collaboration with Public Enemy.
After two Grammy Award-winning efforts in Vivid and Time’s Up, Stain receiving wide-spread critical acclaim, and the production of “No/ Dread,” a fine document of Living Colour performances (electric and unplugged) with Wimbish a permanent member of the band, Vernon was still disappointed in Stain, and decided to call it quits in 1995, immediately after finishing a tour with the D.C. punk band, Bad Brains.
“I want a closet big enough to live in. A closet big enough for the world to live in.”
1993 — Never reluctant to express an opinion, Living Colour played “Bi,” a song about bisexuality, on NBC’s Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
1986 — Jeff Beck in Japan
Carlos Santana
w/
Buddy Miles
Herbie Hancock
Jerry Garcia
George Benson
1987 —Hail! Hail! Rock N Roll
Chuck Berry
Keith Richards
Eric Clapton
A Band Grows In Brooklyn
1988 — Vivid
1989 — Steel Wheels Tour
1990 — Time’s Up
1991 —
New Jack City Soundtrack
Judgement Night (1993)
“Me, Myself, & My Microphone”
Run DMC
Living Colour,
Cypress Hill,
De La Soul,
Faith No More, Fatal,
Helmet, House of Pain, Andy MacPherson,
J Mascis,
Mudhoney, DJ Muggs,
Pearl Jam,
Rick Rubin,
Run-D.M.C.,
Sir Mix-a-Lot,
Sonic Youth,
Teenage Fanclub, Therapy?
1991 — Lollapalooza
Body Count
Bad Brains
Fishbone
Public Enemy
Biscuits
New Jack City
“New Jack Theme”
New Jack City Soundtrack
Brothers of Sodom
1988 — Taking Mick For A Ride
[Tokyo/Australia]
Bernard Fowler
Joe Satriani
Doug Wimbish
Chuck Leavell
Kick Ass Rock N Roll
1989 — Steel Wheels Miami
Rolling StonesLittle Havana @ The Orange Bowl
Jon Stoll (Fantasma Productions). Parked on the street in Little Havana. Two second row tickets for the Rolling Stones in the Orange Bowl, where the Miami Dolphins and the University of Miami Hurricanes play. Meet at the inflated “Bud” can. Passed out under the Visa banner. $300 Leather Jackets, rather than T-Shirts. Coffee-table, hard-cover, photography books, rather than a paper poster or ad-filled program. Entering the stadium, and looking down toward the mammoth stage in the opposite end zone, we saw Living Colour in the middle of “Cult of Personality,” the last tune in their set. Chuck Leavell, wish it was Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones, Yes, but it was Chuck taking a solo in …
Back To Earth
1990 — While touring North America with the Stones, Living continued to work onTime’s Up, their second album, and even before getting the call from Mick to join the Steel Wheels Tour, were anxious to finish and deliver the record to fans, critics, and the industry, that had all responded so well to their platinum-selling debut, Vivid.
Time’s Up quickly goes gold, and like a rocket’s second stage, pushes Living Colour to the next level. Time’s Up earned the band’s second Best Hard Rock Performance Grammy Award, following “Cult Of Personality,” Living Colour’s first (MTV) hit, Also of note was Living Colour being named “Best New Band” at the 1989 International Rock Awards, the same as at the 1989 MTV Music Video Awards.
Onstage, where the band always shines brightest, Living Colour followed it’s “Steel Wheels” run, with a spot on Perry Farrell’s (Jane’s Addiction) Inaugural Lollapalooza.
1991 — Time’s Up, Living Colour’s second album, was mostly written and edited while the band was on the road with the Stones. Being released so soon after Vivid and the Steel Wheels Tour, and receiving more critical acclaim, did much to improve Living Colour’s already good reputation.
When Guitar World magazine featured Vernon on its January 1991 cover, Living Colour had been invited by Perry Farrell to join what was meant to be Jane’s Addiction’s farewell tour. He called it Lollapalooza, and the inaugural was so successful, Farrell organized another, and another, and another … every of the twenty years since.
— video (“Time Tunnel”)
1991 — Of note was Perry Farrell inviting Living Colour to join Jane’s Addiction on the inaugural Lollapalooza Festival Tour, originally scheduled to be Jane’s Addiction’s farewell. That first year’s lineup also featured: Siouxsie & The Banshees, Nine Inch Nails, Fishbone, Ice T & Body Count, Butthole Surfers, Rollins Band, EBN, and Violent Femmes. Living Colour also released Biscuits, an EP of outtakes, and on the Japanese pressing, a number of live performances, including “Love & Happiness.”
After a month touring Europe, enjoying time back home in New York City, a travel-weary Muzz Skillings chose not to continue on to Mexico City, Buenos Aires, and Rio de Janeiro. Fortunately, the timing was right for Vernon to ask old friend Doug Wimbish if he might consider filling in for Muzz, helping Living Colour to finish its first world tour. Tack>>Head, Doug’s band (with Original Sugar Hill Rhythm Section mates Skip McDonald and Keith Leblanc, with Bernard Fowler and On-U Sound’s Adrian Sherwood) was taking a break after releasing it’s second record, Strange Things, allowing Doug to join Living Colour in South America.
“Lollapalooza”
1991 — The Principal Players, including Vernon Reid, discuss the pomp, circumstance, and drama surrounding the first Lollapalooza.
“Love & Happiness”
Living Colour
Biscuits
1991 — Gulf War
((( song )))
— End Of The Beginning
Before embarking on any new voyage, Living Colour made the good habit of leaving a collection of live and unreleased recordings behind, for the memories.
1991 — Biscuits is a collection of energetic live recordings and previously unreleased outtakes and B-sides recorded between 1989 and 1991, the Muzz Skillings years.
Hot Fun In The Summertime
1991 — After a meteoric rise out of the Manhattan Underground, playing Saturday Night Live and stadiums with the Rolling Stones, Vernon and Living Colour landed back home, in New York City, but took no break. They immediately went into the studio and finished their second album before the end of 1990. When home in New York City, Vernon spent much time downtown, where he started his career, and where he feels most comfortable.
1992 — In the middle of Living Colour’s first World Tour, Muzz Skillings, unhappy with life on the road, decides to leave the band. Scheduled to leave for Brazil in less than two weeks, Vernon called his old (Downtown New York) friend Doug Wimbish who he knew was available, and was musically able to step in so immediately.
1993 — Stain is Living Colour’s first album after Doug Wimbish joined the band, and the last before the band dissolved (1994) and reunited (2001).
Living Colour’s Epic Launch
Back In Black
Many, especially critics and industry professionals, argued that Living Colour’s third record, Stain, marked another exploratory change in the band, that from the beginning has been known for playing on the edge of its own making.
1993 — After completing the South American leg of Living Colour’s 1991 world tour, bassist Doug Wimbish accepted the band’s invitation to join the band permanently.
Doug’s contribution, as a writer, player, and producer, are significant in what critics called the “darker” tone of Living Colour’s third album, Stain.
Because Stain came at a time (March 2, 1993) when Seattle, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and a new genre called “Grunge” were commanding most popular attention, it was overlooked compared to Living Colour’s first two albums, Vivid and Time’s Up. Despite praise from critics and fans, both who appreciated the record’s harder, industrial edge, Stain reached only #26 on the Billboard chart, and because a guy named Jon Stainbrook with a band called The Stain filed a lawsuit and had production of Stain stopped. The record remained out of print until 2013, when it was released on disc, and made available to download.
1993 — Stone Free: A Tribute To Jimi Hendrix (“Crosstown Traffic”)
1993 — Judgement Night (“Me, Myself, And My Microphone”) w/ Run DMC
1994 — True Lies Soundtrack (“Sunshine Of Your Love”)
— Living Colour
post-epic documentary recordings
1995 — Pride
Storm Is Rising
It was a volatile time (1988) when Vernon Reid and Living Colour, entered the Rock N Roll fray. The 1980s had opened the door wide, and storming through it was a growing Punk, faster and faster metal, and a more angry and guttal Thrash. All shots across the popular music bow.
For The Love Of Money
Queen Latifa
New Jack City
((( Ladies’ Night )))
I Was Afraid of Malcolm
Garland Jeffreys
1992 — Don’t Call Me Buckweat
((( Race Music )))
“No Sell Out” (Malcolm X)
Keith LeBlanc
v. The Robinsons (Sugar Hill Records)
((( Blanc Like Me )))
1993 — (No) Dread
“Crosstown Traffic”
Stone Free: A Tribute To Jimi Hendrix
1994 — True Lies
“Sunshine Of Your Love”
1995 — Pride
Living Colour (after)
Cult Of Personality”
Living Colour
In the few moments we have left. (Malcolm X)
1994 — (No) Dread
((( song )))
When MTV introduced its new way of “presenting” music on television, Vernon Reid was living “underground,” in the darker, more experimental, Downtown New York City neighborhood, but a dramatic change was gonna come.
“Steel Wheels”
Rolling Stones
Steel Wheels (Album)
1989 —
((( song )))
OriginalNoise.Org
“Time Tunnel” (1990) Documentary Film
1989 December 14 — Vernon Reid, wearing a “Burn Baby Burn” (American Flag) T-shirt, and the rest of Living Colour, after nearly a year on the road, joined the Rolling Stones onstage in Montreal, at Olympic Stadium, for an end-of-Steel Wheels tour, “It’s Only Rock N Roll” jam.
Later that year, Living Colour was asked to open for the Rolling Stones on its Steel Wheels World Tour, for which the band received critical acclaim and enhanced it’s reputation notably. Also in 1989, Living Colour was named “Best New Artist” at the MTV Video Music Awards, and “Cult Of Personality” won a Grammy Award for “Best Hard Rock Performance.”
“Visions”
Living Colour
1995 — Pride
(((Future)))
“CP Time”
Vernon Reid
1996 — Mistaken Identity
(((Transitions)))
“Sweet Leaf”
Electro Funkadelia w/ Sativa
2006 — New Jack City
((( Girls’ Night )))
— The New Yorker
After Living Colour’s dissolution, each member went on to work on solo projects, reunite with old bandmates, and join other bands, both in the studio and on the road.
Vernon — Mistaken Identity (1996)
with Ronald Shannon Jackson’s Decoding Society
Defunkt
Guitar Oblique with David Torn and Elliott Sharp
Magic Science, Gil Evans’ arrangements of Jimi Hendrix
songs with Medeski, Martin & Wood, and the Gil Evans Orchestra
Salif Keita
James “Blood” Ulmer
Free Form Funky Freqs
Masque
Global Noize with Jason Miles
Earth Driver
Lenny White (Miles Davis)
Corey Glover — Hymns (1998)
As Reverend Daddy Love, formed a band called Vice with guitarist Mike Ciro
Sonic Adventure Remix (1998)
Live at CBGB’s
Live at The Wetlands (1999)
w/ Galactic
w/ Jane Getter
w/ OZ NOY
Will Calhoun —
Housework (1995)
Drumwave (1997)
Herb Alpert Colors (1999)
The Will Calhoun Quintet: Live at the Blue Note (2000)
Dhafer Youssef Electric Sufi (2001)
Native Lands (2011)
Life in This World (2015)
Celebrating Elvin Jones (2016)
2000 — with Bobby Watson (alto saxophone), John Benitez (bass), Orrin Evans (piano), and Terell Stafford (trumpet) Head>>Fake (drum/bass) with Doug Wimbish
Jungle Funk (1999)
Doug Wimbish — Trippy Notes for Bass (2000)
CinemaSonics (2008)
Cyberpunk Billy Idol (1993)
Don’t Look Back Al Green (1993)
Wandering Spirit Mick Jagger (1993)
Time Machine Joe Satriani (1993)
Never Turn Back (1993)
The Wolf That House Built (1994)
Slow Fuse (1995)
Medusa Annie Lennox
Letters Never Sent (1994)
Carly Simon: Live at Grand Central Station (1995)
12 Hits and a Bump (1996) w/Bernard
Mas Feedback (1997) w/Bernard
Miracles Bim Sherman (1997)
Ultra Depeche Mode (1997)
Bridges To Babylon Rolling Stones (1997)
Michael Hutchence (1999)
Jungle Funk (1999) with Will Calhoun and Vinx
Herb Alpert Colors (1999) with Will Calhoun
Dhafer Youssef Electric Sufi (2001) with Will Calhoun
“Sweet Leaf”
Electro Funkadelia w/ Sativa
2006 — New Jack City
((( Girls’ Night )))
The Wonderful World Of Living Colour
Pt.1 — a vivid beginning
Pt.2 — post-apocalyptic reunion
Pt.3 — back in the USSR
“who shot ya?”
SHADE (Sept. 9, 2017)
LIVING COLOUR / COVER
LIVING COLOUR Pt./1 — a vivid beginning
LIVING COLOUR Pt./2 — post-apocalyptic reunion
LIVING COLOUR Pt.3 — back in the USSR
LIVING COLOUR / “who shot ya?”
LIVING COLOUR / SHADE (Sept. 9, 2017)
“Surfing With The Alien”
Joe Satriani
Surfing With The Alien
1987 —
((( song )))
“Up On The Roof“
The Drifters
Under The Boardwalk
1964 —
((( Urban Roots )))
Epic Records Promotional
A most appropriate place for Vernon Reid and Living Colour to stand for their first (Epic Records) promotional photograph. Atop a building in their Brooklyn (NYC) neighborhood.