Bill Bruford curates his legacy of musical recordings

November 2, 2023 2:36 PM

Legendary drummer Bill Bruford has an official YouTube channel, and it features 140+ archival videos covering his 40-year career as a rock and jazz musician. You can start with a 1972 BBC look at Yes in their prime, watch a 1976 clip from his time in Genesis, enjoy a 1982 King Crimson concert from Munich, listen to ABWH play Close to the Edge in 1989, and finish with his jazz group Earthworks from Chile in 2002. Most videos feature personal descriptions from Bruford that provide additional context for each performance.

There are many musical groups with official YouTube channels, but it's unusual to see a single channel covering an individual musician's contributions across so many influential bands. If you pick a video at random you will probably see one of the best progressive rock performances ever recorded. It looks like the channel was originally set up to promote his box set Making a Song and Dance, but he's still putting out new videos with a premiere of Brother of Mine scheduled for tomorrow. I haven't listened to everything yet, but I've always been a fan of the early 80s King Crimson so I loved the live footage of Elephant Talk.

posted by JZig (10 comments total)

Oooh looking forward to sinking my teeth (ears) into this!! Thanks
posted by supermedusa at 3:30 PM on November 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

Been reading his autobiography, almost finished and loving it (Bill Bruford: The Autobiography)
posted by Golem XIV at 3:58 PM on November 2, 2023 [3 favorites]

Bruford has been one of my favorite musicians since I was a kid. I saw him with Yes, King Crimson (three times), his own band, and UK. He was always masterful in his timing and dynamics. Thanks for posting, JZig!
posted by Surely This at 4:15 PM on November 2, 2023 [3 favorites]

Thanks for posting this! I've had this channel opened in a tab ever since I came across months ago.
Some of these videos have floated around on youtube before (the full King Crimson concert for example) or are available on DVD (Rock Goes to College) but as the OP stated, you get personal descriptions for each video.

One that I wasn't familiar with but immediately became a favorite was Bruford (the band but also the man) with Annette Peacock doing Back to the Beginning from the Bruford album Feels Good to Me on a Rock Goes to College show.
posted by LostInUbe at 7:48 PM on November 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

Jeebus, Bruford era King Crimson was the best King Crimson.
posted by mollweide at 7:54 PM on November 2, 2023 [6 favorites]

Will be digging into this for quite a while. Thanks!
posted by ericthegardener at 9:53 AM on November 3, 2023

he had two seperate stints with king crimson. both were pretty good though :)
posted by MikeHoegeman at 3:26 PM on November 3, 2023 [2 favorites]

Or three, depending on how you count it! But, yeah, I should have been more specific. Belew/Bruford/Fripp/Levin resonates the most with me.
posted by mollweide at 4:36 PM on November 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

The post scared the shit out of me when I saw his name. Glad he's still going. I'm not ready to lose more members of Yes.
posted by kokaku at 8:13 PM on November 3, 2023 [2 favorites]

kokaku, that was my first thought, too. Phew,
posted by mollweide at 8:29 PM on November 3, 2023