Just as pop singing wasn't the same after Elvis or the guitar didn't recover after Hendrix, neither was rock orchestration the same after Paul Buckmaster, the half-British, half-Italian string arranger who died Tuesday at age 71 of undisclosed causes. Even if his name doesn't ring any bells (or, more appropriately, triangles), the records Buckmaster arranged and orchestrated will. Starting with his work on David Bowie’s "Space Oddity," Buckmaster's alternately lush and brooding string arrangements enriched, deepened and darkened pop records for nearly 50 years.

If that sounds like an exaggeration, consider just some of the records featuring his arrangements. In Buckmaster's hands, string sections on rock records weren't schmaltzy. They were trippy and panoramic (the Rolling Stones' "Moonlight Mile"), dark and brooding (Elton John's "Madman Across the Water," the Stones' "Sway"), stately (Harry Nilsson's "Without You," John’s "Levon"), high-stepping (Simon's "You're So Vain"), and lush without being overbaked (Taylor Swift's "Back to December"). The muted French horns and other woodwinds that underscored Guns N' Roses "Madagascar" made that the moist listenable song on the messy Chinese Democracy.

By his own admission, Buckmaster wasn't the most obvious candidate for arranger to the (rock) stars. His mother was a concert pianist, and as a child, he studied cello in private school in London. He didn't even learn how to arrange records until after his schooling. But accidental or not, his timing couldn't have been better. By the mid-1960s, rockers were eager to stretch out the music as much as possible (or as much as could fit onto a side of an LP), and layering strings atop guitars and rhythm sections suddenly didn't seem as anti-rock an idea as a decade before.

First as a touring cellist with the Bee Gees and former Manfred Mann singer Paul Jones, Buckmaster found himself drawn into a very different musical world, and his ghostly work on "Space Oddity," followed a year later by his orchestrations on several tracks on the Elton John album (particularly "Your Song" and "Sixty Years On"), established Buckmaster as the stringman of choice.

From that point on, Buckmaster seemed to be everywhere. "I don't think Paul has gotten the credit he deserves," John told Rolling Stone in 1973. "He's influenced so many string writers, especially the Elton John album; everybody pinches off Paul Buckmaster. Like Lennon on Imagine, I'm not saying he pinched it, but he used a lot of strings on 'How Do You Sleep?' I think nobody really used strings until Buckmaster came along and showed them you can use strings without having them being sugary and awful."

Not everyone agreed: To the Grateful Dead's grousing, Buckmaster was recruited to orchestrate the title song suite of the band's Terrapin Station, which managed to turned those morsels of songs into the Dead's most glorious shot at prog. And who else could have bathed Stevie Nicks in strings the way Buckmaster did on "Beauty and the Beast" from The Wild Heart?

Although he was largely associated with the classic rock era, Buckmaster hardly slowed down; in recent years, he worked with not only GNR and Swift but Train, Brandi Carlile, Faith Hill and others and moved into movie scoring with Twelve Monkeys.

But it will be his rock work for which he'll best be remembered, and rightly so: In his hands, and those of his violinists and conductors, Buckmaster made the possibilities of rock seem even more infinite.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/ ... 71-w511370

Loved his work on the Elton John albums. He was featured in the Elton John Classic Albums video I watched last week and suddenly he dies a few days later.

RIP.

RIP.

One of the best arrangers and score writers ever in rock music. His work will live on forever. Thanks Mr. Buckmaster for all the great music. RIP.

Also love his work on those early Elton albums including a lot of what makes up the "Friends" soundtrack. RIP

I was just about to mention "Friends". A very under-rated album. My favorite Elton after "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road". Buckmaster also worked with Miles Davis on "On The Corner", radically changing Davis' sound.
I have always intended to make a playlist of Buckmaster's best arrangements, but never got around to it. Maybe today would be a good day to do so.

Very sad news. Gus and Paul were huge components of the classic Elton sound. Thank you for your contributions to the music and the joy it brought us. You will be missed!

Oddly enough I had missed out on Friends, and had ordered a copy of Rare Masters shortly before Buckmaster passed.

Rare Masters is a great comp.

You're not kidding. Not sure what took me so long, but it is nice to discover some Elton from this period I'd never heard before.

Funny, but I'm listening to Rare Masters right now, too (during today's & tomorrow's commutes). That orchestral work on the Friends soundtrack is very good. I think Paul Buckmaster's arrangements elevated Elton's already-excellent music to an extraordinary level. His special touches help make those songs classics.

Jim

Very overlooked gem. Before this release getting a good clean copy of 'Friends' was almost impossible. The soundtrack was originally released on the Pickwick label which was notorious for the noisy surface sound. I think I will pull out my copy this week as well to join in the celebration of Mr. Buckmaster's work.

Beck cited Buckmaster as the main influence on his Sea Change album, which is easily my favorite of his.

I as well. I have the MFSL SACD of 'Sea Change' and it is one of most beautiful fulfilling cd's in my collection.

RIP. I had just recently learned about Buckmaster's involvement with Miles Davis' On The Corner, an album that still sounds radical all these years later. That this man was involved in both this and those majestic orchestrations on the Elton John albums shows what a talent he was.

Growing up, one of the 8-tracks in our camper was Elton's eponymous album. I must have listened to it several hundred times all the way through between the age of 3 and 18. I bought it on CD the day the Rocket/Island remasters were released, and I gave my folks a copy, too. Needless to say, whenever I hear minor-key string arrangements in a rock song, I think of that 8-track.

I'm a big fan of that "Friends" soundtrack as well. Also liked the movie back when it came out, though I'm not sure what I'd think of it now. Buckmaster's work on those early Elton John albums really made them for me. I'm also a big fan of his work on many of Shawn Phillips' 70's albums, which are now sadly pretty much forgotten since he really didn't have any hit singles. Still one of my favorite singer-songwriters.

Wow, didn't know he worked on the Shawn Phillips albums. Anyone you would recommend Rick?

I would recommend Second Contribution, Collaboration, Faces and Furthermore. I have many others, but these albums contain his most famous songs and are the highest-rated...

Jeez, I don't think I've heard a Shawn Phillips record since I was in college or maybe very early in the '80s. He was quite popular among a certain crowd. My sister-in-law named her cat Shawn after him. A cat with long white hair. I recall liking "Second Contribution" and "Collaboration" back then, too.