Bill Connors

Hootsmon

This is one guitar dude who has escaped my eagle ear..........whaddya think and where to start?

Blueingreen

I only know Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy, with Chick Corea. It was an important album to me, the first jazz/fusion album I really got into. But my enthusiasm for the genre didn’t last and I haven’t heard it for a long time. Loved it at the time though. I actually saw that line up of the band, which was terrific but if I’m being honest I always slightly regretted not seeing it a few months later, by which time Connors had been replaced by Al Di Meola, who I thought was a much more melodic player. Connors was fiery but he seemed a bit of a weak link in a line up including Corea, Stanley Clarke and Lenny White. I know nothing of his subsequent career and could easily be doing him an injustice.

sweepy

He morphed into a Holdsworth clone from his early Return to Forever Days, though Step it is worth checking out

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLooF1k9qoOZjIw0ZTBHx3tsmN-fqVrcvw&si=gLUjXh3nRilvmA-M

Hootsmon

Blueingreen said:

I only know Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy, with Chick Corea. It was an important album to me, the first jazz/fusion album I really got into. But my enthusiasm for the genre didn’t last and I haven’t heard it for a long time. Loved it at the time though. I actually saw that line up of the band, which was terrific but if I’m being honest I always slightly regretted not seeing it a few months later, by which time Connors had been replaced by Al Di Meola, who I thought was a much more melodic player. Connors was fiery but he seemed a bit of a weak link in a line up including Corea, Stanley Clarke and Lenny White. I know nothing of his subsequent career and could easily be doing him an injustice.

Just bought it!. He sounds kinda like Gary Boyle from Isotope

jdgm

He made 3 acoustic LPs for ECM then went silent for awhile, came back on electric with "Step It", "Double Up" (both excellent fusion) and "Assembler".  After that another break then "Return" in 2004 on which he has a clean jazz tone.

Philly_Q

I've got a cassette of Stanley Clarke's self-titled second solo album somewhere, and I know Connors is on that, but I've absolutely no memory of what it sounded like....

jdgm

Philly_Q said:

I've got a cassette of Stanley Clarke's self-titled second solo album somewhere, and I know Connors is on that, but I've absolutely no memory of what it sounded like....

Good one. I still have that on LP.  Clarke, Connors, Jan Hammer, Tony Williams. 

Philly_Q

jdgm said:

Philly_Q said:

I've got a cassette of Stanley Clarke's self-titled second solo album somewhere, and I know Connors is on that, but I've absolutely no memory of what it sounded like....

Good one. I still have that on LP.  Clarke, Connors, Jan Hammer, Tony Williams. 

Listening to it now, just for the hell of it.  Some of it sounds like people farting around in a practice room and you wonder why they recorded it, some of it is really good.  Connors, when he's featured, has a really aggressive, distorted rock tone much of the time.  It's got a sort of timeless quality, it certainly doesn't sound like 1974.