"You're influenced by who?" volume 1 - Vivian Campbell

Well, in an attempt to make an effort to be consistent and do as I promised in my last post, I submit this first episode of a personal account of interesting/talented/fascinating/generally great yet largely unknown musicians. Today I start with an Irish fellow by the name of Vivian Cambell . Why is Viv #1 in the series? Well, I considered long and hard about how to begin this, and I figured he'd be a good start because he (along with my dad) was one of the major influences in my deciding to begin playing guitar in the first place. Read on:

You see, growing up, my parents always had music playing in the house. It was mostly Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young , Judy Collins , Simon and Garfunkle , stuff like that. You know, good music, but not exactly "edgy". So, while in 6th grade at St. Gabriel's Catholic school, a classmate of mine turned me on to this band called Dio . The album covers had demons and fire on them, there were rumors that if you looked at the logo upside down it spelled out "devil", it was "heavy metal" music (which I had never heard), it had all the things that would make any 12-ish year old boy wanna check it out. So, I bought The Last in Line . I was almost a little bit scared to listen to this record at first, since being raised a good little Catholic boy, I wasn't 100% sure that I wouldn't immediately be sucked down to hell for listening to this "evil" music.

Well, it turns out, all these guys are very talented. Ronnie James Dio (the lead singer and founder of the band) has an amazingly powerful and emotive voice. I swear, the man might only be 5'4", but I'd say 5'1" of that is lungs and vocal cords. Vinny Appice is a scary, thunderous drummer, Claude Schnell was a visionary keyboardist (an anomoly in itself, a keyboard guy in a "heavy" band who later influenced me...I'll elaborate later), the understated bassist Jimmy Bain and then there was Vivian Campbell . Vivian's style is hard to pin down. He's bluesy, he's heavy, he can melt frets with some of his "flashier" stuff (see songs like "Rainbow in the Dark" from Holy Diver or "Another Lie" from Sacred Heart or "Don't Talk to Strangers" also on Holy Diver) but he also can lay into the pocket the way a good guitar player should at times (as in "Egypt (The Chains Are On) from The Last In Line or "Shame on the Night" from Holy Diver ) In short, there was no one thing about his playing that struck me, I just thought he was a badass. Now admittedly, it may have been that I was a little swept up in the taboo of listening to "evil" music, and hell, the albums had demons on the cover, the lyrics were about dragons and magic and wizards and all kinds of dark subject matter, what 12-ish year old boy wouldn't dig that? For crying out loud, when I FINALLY got to see Dio live in 1988 (sadly after Viv left the band) the stage show had a robotic spider that the current guitarist at the time, Craig Goldie , shot with a laser coming from his guitar during his big solo, how metal is that??

But, I digress, even now as a much more accomplished guitarist, when I listen to the 3 Dio albums with Viv on them, I gotta say, that sucker can still tear it up. I remember in 1990 when the Whitesnake album came out, I saw the video for "Still of the Night" and saw Vivian playing guitar. I flew to the tv, the song rocked, I bought the record thinking he'd finally resurfaced. But, it turns out a guy name John Sykes played all the guitar on the record and was then apparently fired (along with the rest of the "studio" band) so David Coverdale could form a new band for touring...I'd have been pissed. The guitar playing on that record was pretty friggin great, so I don't understand why you'd kick the dude out, but anyway....Viv was in the band, but they never came through my area. Then he joined Def Leppard, and I wasn't really ever a big fan of theirs (a little too wuss-rock for me) so I just didn't really follow. But I will say, the guy definitely helped light my inspirational fire and for that I'll always have a soft spot for him. I probably should check out his new stuff (I confess I haven't). I hear he's playing in a much bluesier style, which I generally like, but it's hard to imagine one of your heroes playing in a totally different style then when you were exposed to him/her. Imagine if Eric Clapton put out a bluegrass album....you'd think....huh?? So Vivian, thanks for the rocking, and I will still proudly bang my head whenever I hear "We Rock", "Gypsy", "Hungry for Heaven", any of the old stuff.