I think a tree, although tempting, is a pretty futile idea - it would never be complete, and you couldn't hope to create all the branches (or twigs, come to that, let alone the individual leaves!). I'm not looking for "patterns", but direct, demonstrable links - like the Spooky Tooth one.
I'm not claiming McLaughlin as an influence on Priest, that was just an example of someone who was already playing electric guitar quickly. I could just as easily have picked Les Paul, who influenced every electric guitarist under the sun.
Black Sabbath, though noted for their slow numbers, also played some uptempo ones, as "Children of The Grave" demonstrates - I picked that piece for a reason.
Priest themselves played some very slow songs on their early outings too - it wasn't all uptempo. Indeed, the real energy didn't come until they got a new drummer, Simon Phillips who filled in on "Sin After Sin", and then Les Binks, of course.
Recall that Sabbath and Priest are very closely linked - Priest were managed by Iommi's management company from around 1974, and Sabbath's producer, Rodger Bain, produced their first two albums.
In 1974, The Scorpions, UFO and Queen were already playing "dextrous" high-energy heavy rock music that is really the "First Wave of Heavy Metal". Uli Roth, Michael Schenker and Brian May all had unique styles - not forgetting Mr Blackmore and the earlier generation, who were also capable of high speeds. "Highway Star" is a particularly energetic Purple track, with that solo rhythm consisting mainly of "chugging" 8th notes, which I've seen constant references to as "proto-thrash".
Purple, of course, sounded very different in the late 1960s - amazingly similar to Spooky Tooth in many ways, as if by co-incidence... the strand leading back to psychedelia is, of course, a very short one, as psych only "started" in 1965.
It's clear that jazz styles have caught on in more recent times, and the influence from jazz runs in a direct line from Tristano to Satriani, even though the music of Satriani and his pupils generally has very little to do with Tristano. To get that link, we'd need to look at more modern metal bands and trace it back.
For now, I'm sticking with Sabbath, and what gave rise to their music before moving on to Priest full time. My main research interest is the mid-late 1960s, although I actually grew up with Glam, NWoBHM and Thrash. The 1960s are particularly interesting to me because they were a kind of melting pot, full of incredibly innovative musicians, most of whom disappeared without a trace, yet left an indelible stamp on modern music.
|