Living Colour: Whatever happened to the band behind 'Cult of Personality;

0:00 - Introduction/Early Years
4:07 - Band's Big Break/First Album
8:00 - Controversy/Second Album
12:40 - Later Career

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Not to be confused with the TV show In Living Colour, which we’ll talk about in a bit, the Vernon Reid led rock group shook up the scene in the late 80’s and early Nineties. All of the band’s members were black. Something unusual at the time in the hard rock space and that led to some unique challenges for the group. Living Colour got caught up in the paradox of being black artists in rock n’ roll, even though rock n’ roll was rooted in blues and soul music. On top of that the band’s success also drew questions about whether having friends in high places led to their success. Today let’s talk about the history of living colour..
The roots of Living Colour began with guitarist Vernon Reid who was born in london, england before moving to new york city at a young age. By the early 80’s Reid making a name for himself as an accomplished guitar player in both the postpunk and progressive jazz scenes. He would be a member of the group Decoding Society while also forming his own band in 1983 that would eventually morph into Living Colour. By 1985 Reid left Decoding Society choosing to focus on his own group while also forming an organization called the BRC or back rock coalition that was a non profit that fought music censorship, broke down racial stereotypes in rock and promoted black artists. By 1990 the BRC would boast 30 artists and nearly 200 individuals members. The BRC would be instrumental in helping formulate the classic lineup of living colour as we’ll discuss in a bit.
Rolling Stone would run a profile on the band in 1990 highlighting Reid’s goal with Living Colour stating and i quote“ Reid had a clear idea of what he wanted Living Colour to be: a full-tilt rock band celebrating the continuing vitality and enduring promise of Robert Johnson, Billie Holiday, Bo Diddley, Sly Stone, Ornette Coleman and Bad Brains (to name but a few), with the muscle and volume of Led Zeppelin.”
The band’s lineup in addition to Reid, would be made up of lead vocalist Corey Glover, drummer Will Calhoun and bassist Muzz Skillings. The band’s drummer Will Calhoun was a graduate of Berklee college of music in Boston he had worked with Jaco Postorious and toured with harry belefonte. He would meet Reidd through the black rock coalition. Bassist muzz skillings was from queens and played salsa, jazz and rock in a variety of bands growing up before attending city college studying music. Shortly before joining living colour he led a cover band named Muz and also met Reid through the black rock coalition.. It was during the early days of living colour that skillings contemplated becoming a nyc firefighter but abandoned his plans once the band started to gain some momentum. The band’s vocalist Cory Glover was a student of Dowling college in long island and served as a DJ at the college radio station in addition to some brief acting roles, landing a spot in the oliver stone film Platoon. Reid would offer Glover the opportunity to join his band after the pair attended a birthday party of a mutual friend and heard Glover sing happy birthday. While Glover didn’t join the band through the Black Rock Coalition he could relate the organizations message teling Rolling Stone “ The first time I went down to meet an agent, they had me read some copy, and they said, ‘Too ethnic,’ ” “And my mother was an English teacher at the time. If I spoke any less than perfect, I’d hear about it. Then, about a year and a half later, I did this radio commercial for some allover body scent. The guy came out of the control room and said, ‘It’s just not black enough. Could you make it blacker?’ What do you want me to do, slap it on? That was the rudest thing I’d ever heard.”
By the time Reid founded Living Colour there was a wide perception that he was the leader of the group with Glover Telling Rollingstone “In New York, people thought of Living Colour as Vernon’s band, which in a way it was,” “And the first video, ‘Middle Man,’ was too disjointed. It didn’t show us as an entity, interacting enough. Long after the first album wa