Uli Jon Roth – Scorpions Revisited

Uli Jon Roth
Scorpions Revisited

Uli Jon Roth is one of the three greatest guitar players alive. Who are the other two? That’d be Michael Schenker (of UFO fame) and Frank Marino (& his band Mahogany Rush). That’s just mere opinion, but that’s all you have with art. You can’t use sales to settle the argument. Riff-offs or some sort of guitar wars wouldn’t really settle it. How’d you judge that, anyway? Would the winner have to shatter a glass with a piercing high note? It’s all subjective and I’m going to subject you to my opinion for as many minutes as you’ll keep reading.

What makes this guy so great? Well, he just looks so stinkin’ cool! Okay, that’s never been a criteria for music, but he does have an iconic, cool hippie image going on. And he’s got great taste in stones. Ya gotta love his garish fondness for turquoise. But seriously, Uli has a great tone, controls feedback with commanding vigor and he knows how to swell between the dynamic hushed tones and wailing feedback. While he puts it out there on display, something about his simple approach says greatness. He doesn’t showboat, though he’s got the talent to do so. He just oozes with greatness. It’s a quality the elite guitarists – the great ones – all have.

The dude goes after power and controlled feedback like the grandaddy of the Stratocaster – Jimi Hendrix. He plays a strat, of course, but his specialty is this Sky Guitar that he designed, with scalloped frets and an extra 6+ frets for playing high violin-like notes with a cut-away so his pinky can hit that last, highest note. He’s a composer and a player. He can shred, but most importantly he has feeling in his fingers. He’s like a cross between Marino and Schenker, but he’s got his own voice, his own tone.

Now let’s talk about this new album. It’s called Scorpions Revisited and it’s a collection of tunes he wrote with the Scorpions back in the mid-to-late ’70s. Most of the fans of this German powerhouse won’t recognize his name, because he left shortly after the 1978 live album, Tokyo Tapes. They broke in just about every other country before the USA, but with the addition of Matthias Jabs as his replacement (along with Michael Schenker on the Lovedrive album), they cracked and quickly commandeered the U.S. market shortly after Uli’s departure.

While this true artist has kept himself busy, chasing his muse and exploring scales and genres that few dare, most of his fans would probably agree that his best work was in that era with the Scorpions. While his solo albums could still thrill and make the jaws drop of guitar aficionados, the melody and “hooks” that bring mass (and commercial) appeal were missing. Even his Metamorphosis of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons orchestral album (predictably) pretty much only appealed to a neo-classical or classical purist. Add to that the vocals from his own throat on those first two solo albums (Earthquake and Fire Wind) and the team that sang on his third solo outing, The Night the Master Comes, which was, shall we say, distracting.

Like any good artist, he listens to his audience. And his fans want to hear his Scorpions tunes. I remember seeing Uli and friends in London a few years ago (on the bill with Frank Marino, no less) and smiling as British fans screamed out for the Scorpions classic, “We’ll Burn the Sky.” He politely smiled and said, “I don’t have Klaus Meine with me to sing it.” This kind of ongoing demand brought forth this excellent idea – revisiting the Scorpions classics. This had me worried, though. Who would sing on it? If it couldn’t be Klaus, would I even want to hear it?

You have to understand: the vocals of Scorpions vocalist Klaus Meine are as beautiful and tender as the string-bending notes Uli plays – and vice-versa. Their pairing was certainly a match made in heaven. Once you’ve heard the original, sometimes it’s almost impossible to appreciate a copy. Fortunately, Uli made a good choice with Nathan James. While he’s no Klaus Meine, he also doesn’t try to be. In fact, he does what a good vocalist or instrumentalist does – he serves the song well.

Along with James, the band which performed with he and Roth was Jamie Little (drums), Ule W. Ritgen (bass), Niklas Turmann (guitar, vocals), Corvin Bahn (keyboards, vocals) and David Klosinski (guitar).

The next big thing for a project like this will be the song selection. You know how these things go: there’s never enough room to get all the songs needed. That must be why they wisely chose 19 songs that fit on two compact discs. The song selection is absolutely great. I mean, it would take someone as picky as a heavy metal magazine editor to find a song missing (like “Your Light” from Taken By Force) from this list. All the classics are here – from the pouting and melodic tunes he made come alive on Tokyo Tapes, like “In Trance” to “We’ll Burn the Sky,” and fast-paced barn-burners “Polar Nights” and “Dark Lady” to the vibrato divebombing but esoteric “Fly to the Rainbow” (a showstopper) – but also included are the standout studio gems that Uli fans hold in high esteem – “Sails of Charon,” “Crying Days,” “Life’s Like A River” and “Evening Wind.” I’m impressed.

If all I knew beforehand was that “The Sails of Charon” was being “re-imagined” for this album, I’d probably buy it sight-unseen. The fact that it leads off this collection says a lot. The fresh approach does the song some good, which actually gives way with an instrumental section partway through to reveal the song’s Spanish roots. I’m not talking flamenco picking and fingernail flicking, either. I’m talking Latin dancing rhythms and staccato delivery that could accompany a salsa dance or tango (both). It’s a wonder that this song didn’t make the final setlist of Tokyo Tapes. That’s a question I should’ve asked Uli in my last interview (which was one of my favorites, by the way, and lasted a good one hour and 45 minutes. I hope to include it in a future installment of the Rock Stars on God series).

“Longing For Fire,” “Crying Days,” “Pictured Life” and “Catch Your Train” display rich melodic depth and memorable hooks. The tunes Uli takes over lead vocals for – “Polar Nights,” “Hell Cat,” in particular, are jamming and grooving, but offer little more than we’ve already heard on Tokyo Tapes. While you cannot hear an audience cheering between songs during this set, I think I am correct in guessing that this is sort of a live-in-the-studio recording. What I also don’t hear, by the way, are mistakes. But I’m a fan-boy, I’d probably not notice.

Here’s what Uli said in a press release about the recording:

“The material for this double CD was recorded last year in the same hall in Hanover that we used for the Scorpions rehearsals 1973-1978,” explains Roth. “Together with an amazing bunch of very talented young musicians, I revisited my personal favourites from the early Scorpions period, some of which were written in that same hall. It was an emotional few days and I am very pleased with the results in more ways than one. The idea was to stay truthful to the original spirit of the music, while also putting a new slant on it whenever it felt like the right thing to do. I feel we really succeeded in this and I’m very excited about this project. It was a intense journey into the past and I think we really managed to bring the songs back to life with a vengeance.”

Besides the musical prowess of Uli, I’ve always kind of been drawn to his spirituality, which is on display quite evidently in tunes like “Virgin Killer,” which ironically states that “you” (the listener) are a “demon’s desire” and refers to this adversary as a “virgin killer.” At least that’s my take. I know I’m off in my next interpretation, as Uli corrected me when I asked him, but “Evening Wind” sounds like a poetic way of describing the wonder of hearing that still, small voice we call the Holy Spirit. It’s interesting, too, that these lyrics have apparently received some re-imagining, along with the music.

“Have you ever listened to the evening wind…
Have a listen and you will see my friend
when it’s telling you the truth…”

I hear new verses here:

“Life has been christened by the evening wind.
Love carries wisdom in its words (or is he saying, “in its blues?”),
but when you listen, you will see my friend
that when it’s telling you the truth…”

Interesting. It’s quite a mesmerizing tune, where the guitar basically sings as much as any other voice in the song. That’s what really makes this guitarist special – he sings with his fingers. If you like Phil Keaggy, Ty Tabor, Eric Clapton, Robin Trower or Hendrix, you owe it to yourself to lend your ears to Uli Jon Roth. It might be an acquired taste for some, but this guy’s a master and this is a feast of his best work. Come enjoy. [UDR Music] Doug Van Pelt