Chris Spedding on stage with John Cale in 1975
English guitarist Chris Spedding has been a well-respected session player and sideman for 50 years. He picked some highlights for an interview with Guitar World. On working with John Cale:
I liked John because he was one of the few people who'd take a chance. He'd change tempos, keys and the order of songs because he was interested in improvising. Some of the other members of the band were kind of freaked out by that because it's not the rock 'n' roll thing.
The rock 'n' roll thing would be to keep rigidly to the song and not to experiment with it too much. But coming from a little bit of a jazz background myself, and John coming from an improvisational classical background, we both liked to mess around with things and hit people with a real curveball.
Since he stopped doing the illicit substances as we all did back then, he's gotten to be a lot more controlled – although he's still a bit of a rebel in some ways. It was a very valuable experience. I wish he was still like that, a bit more of a rebel, because we'd get on a lot better.
Spedding was Cale's guitarist on Slow Dazzle and Helen of Troy in 1975. He also was part of the tours to promote those albums. In 1986, 1987 and 1988 he played a string of shows as a duo with Cale in North America.
