David Paul Greenfield (29 March 1949 – 3 May 2020)
was an English
keyboardist
A keyboardist or keyboard player is a musician who plays keyboard instruments. Until the early 1960s musicians who played keyboards were generally classified as either pianists or organists. Since the mid-1960s, a plethora of new musical instr ...
, singer and songwriter who was a member of rock band
The Stranglers
The Stranglers are an English rock band who emerged via the punk rock scene. Scoring 23 UK top 40 singles and 19 UK top 40 albums to date in a career spanning five decades, the Stranglers are one of the longest-surviving bands to have origina ...
. He joined the band in 1975, within a year of its formation, and played with them for 45 years until his death.
Early life and education
Greenfield was born on 29 March 1949 in the south coast seaside resort of
Brighton
Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London.
Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...
.
He learned guitar from an older schoolmate and, after leaving school, played for a year in bands at American bases in Germany.
Career
Greenfield tried to develop a music career in Germany, and played in bands in Britain as well as Germany while also working in his father's printing business and as a piano tuner. In Britain, his bands included The Initials, The Blue Maxi (on the single "
Here Comes Summer
"Here Comes Summer" is an American popular song which was written and performed by Jerry Keller. The song was released on Kapp Records in the United States and London Records in the United Kingdom.
Background
A popular misconception is that thi ...
", released by
Major Minor Records
Major Minor Records was a Northern Irish record label started by Phil Solomon in 1966. It had a distribution deal with Decca Records. Artists on the label included the Dubliners and Johnny Nash.
Phil Solomon was also co-director of Radio Caroli ...
in 1970), and progressive rock bands Rusty Butler and Credo.
He joined The Stranglers after answering an advert by the band in
Melody Maker
''Melody Maker'' was a British weekly music magazine, one of the world's earliest music weeklies; according to its publisher, IPC Media, the earliest. It was founded in 1926, largely as a magazine for dance band musicians, by Leicester-born ...
in July 1975, replacing
Hans Wärmling
Hans Axel Wärmling (22 July 1943 – 12 October 1995) was a Swedish musician and songwriter, and was a founding member and keyboardist of the British rock band The Stranglers. He co-wrote their 1982 UK Top 10 release " Strange Little Girl". He ...
, playing his first gig with them on August 24, 1975. He stayed in the group until his death in 2020.
In 1981, Greenfield produced the single "Back to France" by the band
Boys in Darkness. Greenfield and
Jean-Jacques Burnel
Jean-Jacques Burnel (born 21 February 1952) is an English musician, producer and songwriter, best known as the bass guitarist and co-lead vocalist with the English rock band The Stranglers. He is the last founding member to remain in the band.
...
released an album together in 1983, ''
Fire & Water (Ecoutez Vos Murs)
''Fire & Water'' is an album by Jean-Jacques Burnel and Dave Greenfield of the Stranglers, released on 11 November 1983 on the Epic record label. It is the soundtrack for the film ''Ecoutez Vos Murs'', directed by Vincent Coudanne.
Burnel is r ...
'', which was used as the soundtrack for the film ''Ecoutez vos murs'',
directed
Director may refer to:
Literature
* ''Director'' (magazine), a British magazine
* ''The Director'' (novel), a 1971 novel by Henry Denker
* ''The Director'' (play), a 2000 play by Nancy Hasty
Music
* Director (band), an Irish rock band
* ''D ...
by Vincent Coudanne.
He was a musical perfectionist and could be awkward in social situations; observations consistent with his diagnosis, never made public during his lifetime, as a very
high-functioning autistic.
For many years he was a member of 'Grantanbrycg', the Cambridgeshire branch of the UK re-enactment group Regia Anglorum.
Musical style and equipment
Greenfield's sound and style of playing, particularly on The Stranglers' debut album ''
Rattus Norvegicus
''Rattus'' is a genus of muroid rodents, all typically called rats. However, the term rat can also be applied to rodent species outside of this genus.
Species and description
The best-known ''Rattus'' species are the black rat (''R. rattus'') ...
'', has been compared to that of
Ray Manzarek
Raymond Daniel Manzarek Jr. (né Manczarek; February 12, 1939 – May 20, 2013) was an American keyboardist. He is best known as a member of the Doors, co-founding the band with singer and lyricist Jim Morrison in 1965.
Manzarek was induct ...
of
the Doors
The Doors were an American Rock music, rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1965, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger, and drummer John Densmore. They were among the most controversial and influential ro ...
.
The comparison was even made at the Stranglers' inception by Jean-Jacques Burnel, who said Greenfield had not heard of the Doors at the time. Greenfield admitted that he knew a few Doors tracks, those being "
Light My Fire
"Light My Fire" is a song by the American rock band the Doors. It was recorded in August 1966 and released in January 1967 on their eponymous debut album. Released as an edited single on April 24, 1967, it spent three weeks at number one on t ...
" and "
Riders on the Storm
"Riders on the Storm" is a song by American rock band the Doors. It was released in June 1971, as the second single from '' L.A. Woman'', their sixth studio album and the last with lead singer Jim Morrison. The song reached number 14 on the U.S ...
".
However, he cited the works of
Rick Wakeman
Richard Christopher Wakeman (born 18 May 1949) is an English keyboardist best known as a former member of the progressive rock band Yes across five tenures between 1971 and 2004, and for his solo albums released in the 1970s.
Born and raised ...
of
Yes and
Jon Lord
John Douglas Lord (9 June 194116 July 2012) was an English orchestral and rock composer, pianist, and Hammond organ player known for his pioneering work in fusing rock with classical or baroque forms, especially with the British rock band Deep ...
of
Deep Purple
Deep Purple are an English rock band formed in London in 1968. They are considered to be among the pioneers of heavy metal music, heavy metal and modern hard rock music, but their musical style has changed over the course of its existence. Ori ...
as his early influences.
He was also noted for his trademark style of playing rapid
arpeggio
A broken chord is a chord broken into a sequence of notes. A broken chord may repeat some of the notes from the chord and span one or more octaves.
An arpeggio () is a type of broken chord, in which the notes that compose a chord are played ...
s. His distinctive sound on the early Stranglers recordings involved the use of
Hohner
Hohner Musikinstrumente GmbH & Co. KG is a German manufacturer of musical instruments, founded in 1857 by Matthias Hohner (1833–1902). The roots of the Hohner firm are in Trossingen, Baden-Württemberg. Since its foundation, and though known ...
Cembalet
The Cembalet is a type of electro-mechanical piano built by the Hohner company of Trossingen, West Germany from the late-1950s to the late 1960s. The designer of the Cembalet was Ernst Zacharias. The Cembalet was a reed-based electric piano i ...
(model N),
Hammond L-100 electric organ, a
Minimoog
The Minimoog is an analog synthesizer first manufactured by Moog Music between 1970 and 1981. Designed as a more affordable, portable version of the modular Moog synthesizer, it was the first synthesizer sold in retail stores. It was first popul ...
synthesizer, and later an
Oberheim OB-Xa
The Oberheim OB-Xa was the second of Oberheim's OB-series polyphonic analog subtractive synthesizers, replacing the OB-X with updated features.
History
The OB-Xa was released in December 1980, replacing the OB-X after only a year on the mark ...
.
Greenfield wrote a piece of waltz-time harpsichord music during recording for ''The Meninblack'', which was discarded by other members of The Stranglers, but was later adapted into their biggest hit "
Golden Brown
"Golden Brown" is a song by the English rock band the Stranglers released as a 7-inch single on EMI's Liberty label in 1982, noted for its distinctive harpsichord instrumentation. It was the second single released from the band's sixth studio ...
", with lyrics from
Hugh Cornwell
Hugh Alan Cornwell (born 28 August 1949) is an English musician, singer-songwriter and writer, best known for being the lead vocalist and lead guitarist for the punk rock and new wave band the Stranglers from 1974 to 1990. Since leaving the ...
and music from Greenfield and
Jet Black
Brian John Duffy (26 August 1938 – 6 December 2022), professionally known as Jet Black, was an English drummer and founding member of punk rock/ new wave band The Stranglers. He last performed with the band in 2015, and officially retired in ...
, although the band themselves did not initially see this as a potential single.
In addition to its chart success, the song also won an
Ivor Novello award.
Vocal performances
![DaveGreenfield2018](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/DaveGreenfield2018.jpeg)
On the albums ''
The Raven
"The Raven" is a narrative poem by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. First published in January 1845, the poem is often noted for its musicality, stylized language, and supernatural atmosphere. It tells of a distraught lover who is paid a myste ...
'', ''
The Gospel According to the Meninblack
''The Gospel According to the Meninblack'' (or sometimes referred to as just ''The Meninblack'') is the fifth album by English rock band the Stranglers, an esoteric concept album released in 1981 on the Liberty label. The album deals with con ...
'' and ''
Aural Sculpture
''Aural Sculpture'' is the eighth studio album by the Stranglers, released in November 1984 by Epic Records. It was also the name given to a one-sided 7-inch single given free with a limited number of copies of their '' Feline'' album in 1983. ...
'', Greenfield used a
Korg
, founded as Keio Electronic Laboratories, is a Japanese multinational corporation that manufactures electronic musical instruments, audio processors and guitar pedals, recording equipment, and electronic tuners. Under the Vox brand name, they ...
VC-10
vocoder
A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''voice'' and ''encoder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation.
The vocoder was ...
.
Notable instances of this include in "Genetix" when it accompanies his own vocal and during the "Gene Regulation" section underneath Hugh Cornwell's monologue,
and on "Baroque Bordello" towards the end of the song.
He also frequently contributed
harmony
In music, harmony is the process by which individual sounds are joined together or composed into whole units or compositions. Often, the term harmony refers to simultaneously occurring frequencies, pitches ( tones, notes), or chords. However ...
backing vocals to the band's songs, and sang the lead
vocals
Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...
on a few of their early tracks, as mentioned in Hugh Cornwell's book ''The Stranglers, Song By Song''.
These tracks are:
* "Dead Ringer" and "Peasant in the Big Shitty" from their album ''
No More Heroes''
* "Do You Wanna?" from ''
Black and White
Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey.
Media
The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...
''
* "Genetix" from ''
The Raven
"The Raven" is a narrative poem by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. First published in January 1845, the poem is often noted for its musicality, stylized language, and supernatural atmosphere. It tells of a distraught lover who is paid a myste ...
''
* "Four Horsemen" on the album ''
The Gospel According to the Meninblack
''The Gospel According to the Meninblack'' (or sometimes referred to as just ''The Meninblack'') is the fifth album by English rock band the Stranglers, an esoteric concept album released in 1981 on the Liberty label. The album deals with con ...
''
* "God Is Good" from ''
Coup de Grace''
Death
Greenfield died on 3 May 2020, aged 71. He had been diagnosed with
COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...
infection during the
COVID-19 pandemic in England
The COVID-19 pandemic was first confirmed to have spread to England with two cases among Chinese nationals staying in a hotel in York on 31 January 2020. The two main public bodies responsible for health in England are NHS England and Public ...
on 26 April 2020, a week before his death, during an extended hospital stay for heart-related problems.
Upon news of his death, several current and former members of the Stranglers eulogized him on social media. Hugh Cornwell
tweeted
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
, "He was the difference between the Stranglers and every other punk band. His musical skill and gentle nature gave an interesting twist to the band. He should be remembered as the man who gave the world the music of 'Golden Brown.'" Other artists also expressed their appreciation. Greenfield's last concert with the band was on 15 February 2020 at the
Auckland Town Hall
Auckland Town Hall is an Edwardian building on Queen Street in the Auckland CBD, New Zealand, known both for its original and ongoing use for administrative functions (such as Council meetings and hearings), as well as its famed Great Hall and ...
in Auckland, New Zealand.
Discography
* ''
Fire & Water (Ecoutez Vos Murs)
''Fire & Water'' is an album by Jean-Jacques Burnel and Dave Greenfield of the Stranglers, released on 11 November 1983 on the Epic record label. It is the soundtrack for the film ''Ecoutez Vos Murs'', directed by Vincent Coudanne.
Burnel is r ...
'' (1983) – with Jean-Jacques Burnel
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Greenfield, Dave
1949 births
2020 deaths
English rock keyboardists
English new wave musicians
Musicians from Brighton and Hove
The Stranglers members
English songwriters
English punk rock musicians
Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in England
People on the autism spectrum