RTF in concert,1973. WOW!!!

[pb2015]

I remember browsing Down Beat a few years ago and they had an RtF history article mentioning tensions between Connors and Chick Corea over musical direction and such. Connors went on to do some albums for ECM sounding nothing like RtF, and then I believe returned to fusion in the 80's.

[DoubleDrummer]

I have all the RTF stuff................love it.
This stuff was being released when I was in music school and all of us would just eat it up...............daily !

The anthology does sound good but the audio masterpiece I have is:

Romantic Warrior (a Japanese remaster that is incredible).............I consider this a reference CD..............truly amazing audio.

[No Pride]

From an interview with Bill Connors in Guitar Player Magazine in '74:

"Chick had a lot of ideas that were part of his involvement with Scientology. He got more demanding and I wasn't allowed to control my own solos. I had no power in the music at all. Then we'd receive written forms about what clothes we could wear and graphic charts where we had to rate ourselves every night; not by our standards, but his. Finally, we had to connect dots on a chart every night. I took all of it seriously because I had a lot of respect for Chick, but eventually I just felt screwed around. In the end, my only power was to quit."

I've heard similar stories from (guitarist) Scott Henderson regarding why he left Chick's Elektric Band. It's really too bad; Chick is an absolute genius musician/composer and I've had a love affair with his music for over 40 years. Sometimes you're better off just focusing on an artist's art and not allowing yourself to get tainted by who he/she is as a human being if you can manage it.

[DoubleDrummer]

You can kinda see by the personnel he desires for each of the albums that he is directing his own thing and the players are submitting to his requests (to a certain extent).
Of course, it is sketchy because when you hear him in an interview or watch him perform on stage, he appears so laid back and reflects joy to be playing the music.