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The original Foreigner lineup; Ian McDonald at right<\/p><\/div>\n
When it\u2019s suggested that he was sort of the George Harrison of the group, with plenty of songs but a small allotment of his music on the actual albums, McDonald reluctantly agrees. \u201cThat\u2019s one way of putting it,\u201d he allows. \u201cI don\u2019t want it to sound like sour grapes, but I had a lot more involvement in the writing, curating, and production than I\u2019m perhaps given credit for,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
McDonald\u2019s songs would often be overshadowed on Foreigner\u2019s blockbuster 1977 debut, 1978\u2019s Double Vision<\/i> and Head Games<\/i> from 1979. But the deep album cut \u201cTramontane,\u201d an instrumental from the group\u2019s second LP, stands as an exemplar of McDonald\u2019s talents. It\u2019s also an effective synthesis of both his pop and progressive inclinations.<\/p>\n
Though he\u2019s not credited, McDonald also wrote the signature opening motif of \u201cWaiting for a Girl Like You,\u201d one of five Top 40 singles from the group\u2019s fourth album, 1981\u2019s 4<\/i>. And by the time of that album\u2019s release, both he and founding keyboardist Al Greenwood had been dismissed from the group. \u201cMick and Lou wanted to downsize the band,\u201d McDonald says, clearly not wishing to focus on the unhappy circumstances surrounding his exit from the highly successful group. \u201cWe went to the studio and there was no one there,\u201d he recalls. \u201cAnd that\u2019s when we found out that we were out of the band.<\/p>\n
\u201cI get on well with the guys now,\u201d he hastens to add. In fact, this summer McDonald took part in a short series of live reunion shows featuring all past and present members of Foreigner. The most celebrated date was in early August at the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota.<\/p>\n
After Foreigner, McDonald enjoyed a lower profile, though he would remain busy. He collaborated on numerous projects with friends John Wetton (ex-King Crimson), Steve Hackett (formerly of Genesis) and former Stories lead singer Ian Lloyd. In 1999\u2014more than three decades after the release of In the Court of the Crimson King<\/i>\u2014McDonald released his first (and to date, only) solo album, Drivers Eyes<\/i>.<\/p>\n
While on his solo record McDonald returns to his customary multi-instrumentalist role, the appealing collection of 11 songs features help by a long list of pals old and new: Michael Giles, Wetton, Hackett, Gramm, Lloyd, Procol Harum\u2019s Gary Brooker, former Wings drummer Steve Holley, The Babys singer John Waite, Mitch Weismann of the original Beatlemania<\/i> cast, Peter Frampton, Saturday Night Live<\/i> house band guitarist G.E. Smith and a full string section arranged by McDonald himself.<\/p>\n
Though Drivers Eyes<\/i> wouldn\u2019t make much of a commercial ripple, it\u2019s an excellent overview of Ian McDonald\u2019s skills as songwriter, musician, lead vocalist, arranger and producer. Again his ability to find the common threads between progressive, pop and straight-ahead rock is on brilliant display. \u201cIt was quite an accomplishment,\u201d admits the customarily self-effacing McDonald.<\/p>\n
The multi-instrumentalist would return to the music of King Crimson yet again in 2002, when he joined four other band alumni to form the 21st<\/sup> Century Schizoid Band. With guitarist (and future King Crimson lead vocalist) Jakko Jakszyk fronting the group, 21CSB toured and released four live albums, featuring a repertoire that focused exclusively on the challenging, inventive early material from the celebrated group. \u201cWe had the luxury of having two horn players in the band\u2014Mel Collins and me,\u201d McDonald says. \u201cSo that was fun for a while.\u201d Facing the high costs of touring and the eventual passing of drummer Ian Wallace, the band ceased operations in 2004.<\/p>\n 21st Century Schizoid Band; Ian McDonald at far right<\/p><\/div>\n \u201cFast forward a few years,\u201d McDonald says with a laugh, turning to discussion of his current activities. At home in New York City and walking his dog, he met his neighbors, Ted Zurkowski and wife Lynnea Benson. The couple ran a theatre company, and Zurkowski had what McDonald describes as \u201ca three-piece, alt-country band\u201d called Honey West. The couple eventually asked McDonald to write music to accompany some of their Shakespeare productions. He agreed.<\/p>\n \u201cI had never worked in theatre before, let alone Shakespeare,\u201d McDonald says. \u201cSo it was a great opportunity to learn and expand my talents, get experience in a new field, and learn a little bit about Shakespeare at the same time. I got some insight as to how plays and productions work.\u201d McDonald worked on the project for a few years; during that time he also joined Honey West.<\/p>\n \u201cTed and I started writing songs together, and that evolved into the Honey West of today,\u201d McDonald says. The group\u2019s CD is Bad Old World<\/i>; a vinyl re-release is scheduled for late 2018. Featuring drummer Holley and former Joe Jackson band bassist Graham Maby, the rocking alt-country sound of Bad Old World<\/i> is, once again, no stylistic stretch for McDonald. In addition to producing the album and co-writing nine of the album\u2019s dozen tunes, he sings and plays acoustic and electric guitars, alto and baritone saxophones, clarinet, electric sitar, flute, percussion, organ, electric and acoustic piano and several synthesizers. In support of the album, the group plays in and around New York City.<\/p>\n With such an extensive and varied body of work, picking a favorite track is no easy task for Ian McDonald. \u201cI tend not to listen to things that I\u2019ve done all that much,\u201d he explains. But when pressed, he offers up a few. \u201cI\u2019m quite pleased with the flute coda on \u2018I Talk to the Wind,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201c\u2019Love Has Taken Its Toll\u2019 on the second Foreigner album is kind of a fun song that Lou and I wrote,\u201d he adds. \u201cI\u2019m all over that track.\u201d He pauses a moment and mentions one more. \u201c\u2019Epitaph\u2019 on the first King Crimson album,\u201d he says. \u201cGreg Lake did an amazing vocal; I like how the whole structure and arrangement came out on that one.\u201d<\/p>\n Though every one of his previous musical adventures eventually ran its course, today Ian McDonald is every bit as excited about Honey West as he was when he helped launch King Crimson, Foreigner and the 21st<\/sup> Century Schizoid Band. His signature and myriad musical talents have enhanced the quality of everything to which he has applied them, and the same is likely to hold true for his future endeavors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Continued from Part One… By 1976 McDonald was involved in the founding of a new and very different group. Joined by ex-Spooky Tooth guitarist Mick Jones and American singer Lou […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15817,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,41,51,56,62],"tags":[849,3642,3641,1250],"class_list":["post-15674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alt-country","category-interview","category-pop","category-prog","category-rawk","tag-foreigner","tag-honey-west","tag-ian-mcdonald","tag-king-crimson","cat-4-id","cat-41-id","cat-51-id","cat-56-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15674"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19045,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15674\/revisions\/19045"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/mcdonald_schizoid.jpg\")