Jonny Greenwood
Encyclopedia : J : JO : JON : Jonny Greenwood
Jonathan "Jonny" Richard Guy Greenwood , was born November 5, 1971, in Oxford and is a member of Radiohead. He is also the brother of fellow band member Colin Greenwood. Greenwood is a gifted multi-instrumentalist, capable of playing lead ('abusive') guitar, organ, synthesizer, piano, xylophone, ondes martenot and harmonica.
Career
Jonny Greenwood is often credited as the second major artist in Radiohead along with singer Thom Yorke. Many fans and critics consider Greenwood to be one of the greatest guitarists in all of rock music. His original contributions to Radiohead include the slow rock song "The Tourist" and the Beatlesque avalanche "A Wolf at the Door" – two closers respectively of OK Computer and Hail to the Thief. Yorke has noted that the track "Just" from The Bends was, "a competition by me and Jonny to get as many chords as possible into a song."Greenwood, unlike other members of Radiohead, has had a background in classical music, having taken viola lessons as a child, and is key in fleshing out arrangements brought in by Yorke, the band's principal songwriter. Because of this Yorke often writes the "bones" of a song and Greenwood would be one of the most important influences in fleshing it out so that it works as a piece of music. Greenwood also writes string arrangements for session musicians when they are needed, such as for "Pyramid Song" or the currently unreleased "Nude." He is considered one of the finest musicians of his time in "breaking the boundaries" of music.
Greenwood's extremely aggressive guitar playing has led him in the past to repetitive strain injury in his right arm. Advised by a doctor to wear an arm brace for a period of time, his brace has become a trademark of sorts. "I enjoy putting it on before I play ... It's like taping up your fingers before a boxing match." He is also an outspoken champion of the Ondes Martenot, a very early synthesizer, which he lists as one of his favorite instruments. The Ondes was popularized by French composer Olivier Messiaen, Greenwood's musical idol. Greenwood has composed a piece entitled Smear for a pair of Ondes Martenot. The Ondes can be heard on many Radiohead tracks, notably "The National Anthem" and "How to Disappear Completely" from Kid A. He also utilizes modular synthesizers and devices such as the Korg Kaoss Pad on newer tracks. Greenwood is known for playing a customized Fender Telecaster.
In recent years, Greenwood has continued his progression as an artist in Radiohead and in 2003 he released his first solo album, Bodysong (2003), the soundtrack for the movie with the same title by filmmaker Simon Pummell. His brother Colin also featured on the album. Greenwood was hired by the BBC as its composer in residence in (May 2004). He can be seen in the film Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire along with bandmember Phil Selway and Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker as members of the band the Weird Sisters. Yorke and Greenwood also collaborated on a new project, performed by the London Sinfonietta at the Ether Festival in March last year[link]. Greenwood premiered in 23 April 2005 his new work commissioned by BBC Radio 3, with music performed live by the BBC Concert Orchestra in London[link].
Greenwood is the youngest member of Radiohead, a fact which was significant in the band's early days as 'On a Friday'. At first Greenwood was relegated by the other members to harmonica, before he could prove his worth on guitar. Subsequently, when On a Friday signed their record contract with EMI in the early '90s and changed their name to Radiohead, Greenwood was just starting university, while all the other members had just finished. Making a difficult decision, Greenwood abandoned his planned degrees in music and psychology after just a few months to concentrate full time on the band, who were soon catapulted to fame. He later said he has repeatedly put into practice what he learned in those few months. Ironically, while Greenwood is the only band member with formal musical training, he is also the only one not to have completed higher education.
Although Greenwood says he dislikes later Pink Floyd, one of his favourite albums is Meddle. His favourite piece of music is Messiaen's Turangalila Symphony.[]According to entries on Radiohead's blog Dead Air Space, Greenwood is a dub reggae aficionado, recently listening to little else.
Greenwood was named as one of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" by Rolling Stone Magazine.[link]
Greenwood is married to Sharona Greenwood and has a son named Tamir (to whom Hail to the Thief was dedicated) and a daughter named Omri, born in 2005.
Greenwood and the band are working on another album however no release date has been set.
Equipment Used
Guitars
- Fender Telecaster Plus, with a custom cut-off switch and special rewirings made by Greenwood and Plank (Radiohead's Guitar Technician).
- Fender Telecaster Standard converted into a Plus, which also has a custom cut-off switch.
- Fender Starcaster
Amplifiers
- VOX AC30, used for clean tones.
- Fender Eighty-Five, used for distorted tones.
Effects Pedals
- Marshall ShredMaster (which is unmodified, contrary to popular belief)
- Digitech WH-1 Whammy
- Demeter TRM-1 Tremulator (which was originally thought to be a homemade tremolo pedal)
- DOD 440 Envelope Filter
- Electro-Harmonix Small Stone
- Electro-Harmonix Poly Chorus
- BOSS SD-1 Super Overdrive
- BOSS RV3 Digital Reverb/Delay
- BOSS FV-300H Volume Pedal
- BOSS TU-12H Chromatic Tuner
- Roland Space Echo RE-201
- Mutronics Mutator
Synths
- Analogue Systems RS8000 Integrator
- Analogue Systems RS8500X
- Ondes Martenot
- Korg Prophet
- Korg Prophecy
- Hammond XB2 Digital Organ
- Moog Rogue
Collaborations
- Velvet Goldmine
- Yorke and Greenwood got together with Bernard Butler, Andy Mackay, and Paul Kimble to form the band, The Venus in Furs. They recorded five songs for the Michael Stipe produced movie, Velvet Goldmine. The tracks are
- * "2HB"
- * "Ladytron"
- * "Baby's on Fire"
- * "Bitter-Sweet"
- * "Tumbling Down"
- Pavement
- Greenwood played harmonica on Pavement's LP, Terror Twilight. He played on the songs "Platform Blues" and "Billie". The album was produced by long-time Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich.
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
- Greenwood played lead guitar in The Weird Sisters along with fellow Radiohead member Phil Selway, former Pulp members Jarvis Cocker and Steve Mackey, electronica artist Jason Buckle and Add N to (X) member Steve Claydon. They performed three tracks, composed by Cocker
- *"Do The Hippogriff"
- *"This Is The Night"
- *"Magic Works"
External links
- [Radiohead.com]: Official band website
- [www.ateaseweb.com]: The largest Radiohead fan site; includes a highly popular message board.
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.