It still kind of blows my mind that Foreigner was started by a founder of King Crimson.
Did you know that? There's shared "DNA" between "I Want to Know What Love Is" and "The Court of The Crimson King" - between "Hot Blooded" and "Larks Tongues in Aspic" - thanks to one of Foreigner's founders, Ian MacDonald -- who was also an original member of King Crimson.
Now, it's not like he stayed with either band for very long. When Foreigner's Mick Jones declared he was trimming the "fat" from the band as Foreigner released "4" there was poor Ian getting lumped in with the lard. And King Crimson turned out to be Robert Fripp's baby. One "served" at the pleasure and whim of the King of the Crim. Ian was gone soon after the first album; according to the 1995 Edition of the Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, "On the band's debut U.S. tour, (drummer Mike) Giles and MacDonald left, the latter in a band-control squabble."
In his recent - and quite awesome - book on Prog Rock, The Show That Never Ends, author Dave Weigel spends a few pages covering MacDonald's - and others' - early departure from King Crimson, and offers more insight:
Giles and MacDonald were fraying, pining for their girlfriends. For the first and not the last time, the US was rending King Crimson apart. "We were blowing audience's minds," said MacDonald, "and the thing was turning into this monster that was growing and maybe at the time I wasn't equipped to deal with it." Fripp said, "...King Crimson was everything to me. To keep the band together, I offered to leave instead but Ian said that the band was more me than them."
Ah, the classic "he said, he and he said" scenario. Or, given that lead singer Greg Lake soon followed MacDonald and Giles out the door, perhaps even a "he said, he and he and he said" situation. Though it sounds like a bitter and acrimonious split, Ian did play with Crimson a little a bit later, just before Crimson broke up in the mid-seventies. Freeing Ian up to form Foreigner, evidently.
According to Wikipedia, Ian is still with us - had to look him up after he came to mind:
Ian McDonald (born 25 June 1946 from Osterley, Middlesex) is an English multi-instrumental musician, best known as a founder member of progressive rock band King Crimson, formed in 1969, and of the hard rock band Foreigner in 1976. He is well known as a rock session musician, predominantly as a saxophonist. He also plays keyboards, flute, vibraphone and guitar.Wikipedia says he's still active as well, most recently with "US/UK Indie Rock Country Fusion Invasion" band Honey West.
There is ONE song which, to me, actually demonstrates the shared DNA of the bands, and the fact that the same guy - MacDonald - co-wrote songs on Crimson's first album and Foreigner's first three. If I have a favorite Foreigner song (more on that in a sec), it's this one - "Star Rider":
I swear there's a little King Crimson in that Foreigner...
Afternote: A scary little glimpse into the way my mind works -- thought of all of this because I awoke and saw a fresh coat of light snow had fallen outside, and the world looked blue. My mental jukebox kicked on "Blue Morning, Blue Day" and part of my mind declared it to be my "favorite" Foreigner song. Another part disagreed and put forth "Star Rider" - and so I recalled Ian MacDonald, and the strange "DNA" connecting Foreigner and King Crimson.
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