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Posts: 165
Joined: Sep. 4 2010
From: Northern New Jersey
RE: Saturday Night in San Francisco (in reply to Ricardo)
Interesting info this one. Also explains why Al has been doing those "dinners with the knight" lately.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Ricardo
quote:
ORIGINAL: Mark2
Al’s net worth is only 4 million? That can’t be right. If it is that is downright sad. I hope Metheny has done better than that financially because he really is a monster player.
Yes, well in the late 1980's he had a really bad time financially when the industry changed to "smooth jazz radio friendly stuff". Basically his Cielo y terra album killed his brand name, it was too esoteric. I think he was sidelined.
Mclaughlin by contrast did very cool projects then including the Paco duet, a concerto for orchestra, that Johnny Carson spot boosted his name, the Trio with Trilok Gertu, etc. Al got put back up on the map a little in the early 90s when he did Kiss my Axe (a deliberate title that was anti-industry due to them passing on his projects in the late 80s) and at the same time his World Sinfonia. But I saw him play in some small venues in the late 90s and it was World sinfonia material and people were yelling at him from the audience "play Elegant Gypsy" and he was clearly not happy about that. He only recently started doing that again, but I think would have had a more successful career if he had considered that a long time ago.
The only two projects after that I can think of where he played large venues was Rite of Strings and RTF reunion (both with Stanley Clarke which was the true crowd draw IMO). So I feel the poor guy has been sustained only by his early legacy RTF, Elegant Gypsy and Entre dos aguas (Trio). And the general negative sentiment I have tried to defend him against as seen in these topics on foro, has not been helpful. So the 4 Million is reasonable from my view. Gilbert the same, he had a hit song with Mr. Big that sustained him, so they both are in the same category. Paco at time of death 5 million (like Yngwie and "Chuck" Corea), so similar. I am sure real estate is the main factor for those numbers.
Mclaughlin much more successful, however, only 12 million (it is jazz after all) about the same as Steve Vai (who I think just sold his house with music studio included). Niche guitar shred is not ever going to hit the super big time. Metheny is much higher but AI had to estimate so maybe he is not much more than Mclaughlin, but possibly up to 40 Million. Mcartney and jimmy buffet by contrast are Billionaires Meanwhile Antonio Rey or Diego del Morao have to sell their dad's guitars to pay bills.
RE: Saturday Night in San Francisco (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
Yes he was a "pop star"
No. He's a rock star. He founded one of the influencial alternative rock bands and sold over 30 million albums. Billy himself was a guitar shredder when he was a teenager. He knew what he was talking about.
Posts: 16426
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Saturday Night in San Francisco (in reply to devilhand)
"alternative rock", to me was from the Grunge era that was "popular" and basically supplanted "rock" as a formidable commercial seller, hence "pop star" and sadly these people deliberately dumbed down the music from what it once was or the direction it was going in, hence "alternative", and frankly no, he sounds ignorant to my ears when he makes such statements. But it is my opinion. The fact is that his statement was simply false, the "school" did not "die", it simply moved outside of the "pop chart" category and magazines focused on guitar players stopped interviewing or highlighting those artists as they wanted to sell magazines based on what was "popular" at the time, so new gun slingers (virtuosos) stayed in the background. Meanwhile in other countries like Japan people like Malmsteen (Corgan said his school died) competed well against other "pop" stars like Mariah Carey at the time (The Seventh Sigh bumped her out of top spots).
meanwhile his solo there is Van Halen style, not the shred he was pooing on. He can't even pick across two strings he is doing single string patterns, I guess he perceives that as "shred'. The school he belittled was in reference to malmsteen and the others that where lauded for their ability that were discovered and produced mostly by Shrapnel records, which never were commercially successful. Each of those artists that found success commercially moved away from Shrapnel as it was not a big label with any real money, they were about players and cool compositions that did not necessarily appeal to the masses. Corgan is insinuating that for a time it was "cool" to talk about decent players but that time had passed for "guitar player's guitarists" and now (1995) people like flannel shirts and out of tune twanging, so the genre must have "died". Idiotic.
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Meanwhile Antonio Rey or Diego del Morao have to sell their dad's guitars to pay bills. 
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