Friday, May 11, 2001 | 9:42 a.m.
John, Paul, George and Ringo. Together they comprised the greatest rock band of all time. Apart, well, while there were moments of greatness, each solo artist's career never matched the sustained brilliance of the band's.
The whole is almost always greater than its parts.
Such is the scenario for Living Colour, the late '80s/early '90s funk-metal band that spawned the hits "Cult of Personality" and "Glamour Boys."
Performing tonight at Mandalay Bay's House of Blues, the band broke up in January 1995, the result of internal strife and the need for "personal space," and its members went on to various solo projects.
And even though the members would periodically perform together in the years since -- never at one time -- nothing ever matched the earlier success of Living Colour, a name, incidentally, the band took from a late-'50s/early-'60s NBC television introduction. ("The following program is brought to you in living color.")
So it's no wonder that at annual get-togethers the possibility of re-forming was always discussed.
"We'd sit down with each other and say, 'Do you think we ought to do it now?' 'Yeah, well, we'll talk about it,' " said Living Colour vocalist Cory Glover recently from a studio in New York.
But other projects and schedules got in the way, he said. That is until December, when the band played an unadvertised, unannounced performance at the famous New York club CBGB.
The room was packed, and by all critical accounts, the band was in good form, especially considering the nearly six-year layoff.
"It was the year 2000 and I'm looking to my left and right and seeing people I hadn't seen in I don't know how long -- like nothing had ever changed," he said. "There's Doug (Wimbish, the bassist) over there. There's Will (Calhoun, drummer) behind me. And there's Vernon (Reid, guitarist).
"I guess you could say it was cathartic. Once the four of us were together, we realized what was so great about what we were doing. You forget. It had relegated itself to some sort of fantasy world we had several years ago. And now we're doing it again."
And by his account, having fun in the process. Although, if it had been up to Glover, the touring situation would have been different.
Originally, he didn't want to play anywhere in the United States, he said, since the U.S. market is about records and the band doesn't have a new album to support.
"We don't want this to be about our past, but about our now," Glover said. "If we play the United States and North America, all we're going to be doing is our past."
But a compromise was worked out.
The band will play a few dates around the West Coast before going to South America, with each show acting as a "glorified rehearsal," he said. The idea is to keep writing some new songs, some of which the band will perform, while reworking some of the older material -- at times even radically.
This, he said, keeps it from being a "greatest-hits show."
But as much as the reunion is about performing for the fans of the band, it has also showed how much the band members have matured -- not just musically, he said, but as individuals.
"We're a lot older, we're a lot wiser," the 36-year-old Glover said. "We understand the mistakes we made."
Such as?
"We put a lot of energy into that entity (Living Colour). At a certain point our individual lives suffered because of it," he said. "So, we decided we needed to take stock in our own lives. A lot of things were really getting pushed around. In order for us to really get our (stuff) together, we really needed to get away from this thing."
Part of that "thing" stems from all the attention Living Colour received in its early stages.
For example, the black angle. When rap was really beginning to take off, Living Colour was a true alternative -- an all-black band playing rock 'n' roll. More than a novelty, the band took its position seriously -- Reid, in fact, was co-founder of New York's Black Rock Coalition.
Then there was the ringing endorsements the band received. After seeing the band live, Mick Jagger became one of its biggest supporters, producing some tracks for the band's demo tape, and eventually hiring the band as the opening act in 1989 for the Rolling Stones' "Steel Wheels" tour.
Considering at that point Living Colour had one album to its credit and was playing stadiums as the opener for the Rolling Stones, it's not difficult to see how the pressure would mount.
"We got a lot of stuff too soon," Glover said, "But that was what we needed to have."
And with that notoriety came internal strife within the band, which led to the replacement of original bassist Muzz Skillings with Wimbish in 1993.
"There's always acrimony. There's no band that doesn't have it," Glover said.
But all that is now behind the band, it seems. Glover said he and the other members of Living Colour are looking forward to working together again. But where this will lead the band -- a new record, an extended tour -- is anyone's guess.
"It really depends on today," he said. "It depends on Portland. It depends on Seattle. It depends on San Diego, and on Las Vegas, and on L.A., and San Franciso and Santa Ana (Calif.). And after that, South America. All we can deal with is now."
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