Excellent presentation. Learning about Allan is like learning about the evolution of the human race…he was sent for our advancement.

I’ve been lobbying for a movie while his contemporaries are still alive There’s so much to his life story. Bravo!!

The best documentary of Holdsworth's early music and history I've seen to date. Thank you for your hard work and diligence in putting this together with such dedication and sincerity...nothing less than what his music deserves.

This is really good!!! Thank you so much for doing this. You really did justice to Allan’s work!

Gawd, I knew Allan had struggled but this video really brought it home to me how close he came to giving it all up. Thank goodness he and the band persevered. Even after all this he was never really understood by the cookie cutter music industry. Nevertheless he managed to produce an outstanding body of work that will stand the test of time. I count myself very lucky to have witnessed his incredible brilliance on a number of occasions. RIP Maestro.

Gary was like a more contemporary Tony Williams, just as jarring, inside and explosive, but with a more rock familiarity. He hit hard and did things no one else thought of powerfully, but with a level of music. He really hit hard! didn't know UK opened for VH in 78. Wild.

Allan Holdsworth is our Shakespeare, DaVinci, and of course Tesla all in one and I got to meet him and see him many times. Thank you, grateful !!!! EDIT : I forgot to tell you what a WONDERFUL job you did on this documentary. It is so thorough, and passionate. I can see it was made with real admiration, and not just something to do.

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!! This album was my introduction to the genius of Holdsworth when I was just 17. As a professional career musician and record maker, I cannot overestimate the inspiration and fire I have drawn from his music, but especially this album. I can't imagine how difficult it was to put this information together, but finding all this out after 35 years of studying and memorizing every note of this masterpiece heightens what it means to me that much more profoundly. What a gift you have given us!

This album was jaw dropping when it came out, and remains so. That longevity- holding up as well as it has- testifies to it's legendary greatness. For me- of all his entries, this one is THE ONE. I'd seen Allan with Tony, but the incarnation of IOU was a leap forward in his guitar evolution. The band is as one, with each member superbly talented on their instrument. All tracks are interesting- no dead air. When I first heard the Williams vocals, I thought..what? He sounds like Tom Jones! But it worked! The harmony is so idiosyncratic - I wonder if Jones could handle it, let alone anyone else-but Paul soared thru the demands. Not everyone gets what this recording was about, but those of us that do- really do. Thanks for the posting.

Thank you, Ruby, for this time travel.. very well done. passion never dies.

Thank you for making this splendid programme! IOU remains my favourite AH album and I still remember the sonic shock I felt when I first heard it. I had very little money at the time and to pay £10 for an album in 1983 was a tough decision that I have never regretted. I still have that original vinyl. In late 1981 I was lucky enough to see Allan play in Maidstone, Kent with Gary Husband, Gordon Beck and Jeff Clyne! (Gary is the only one still with us...) After the gig, which was excellent - I remember White Line in particular, as an instrumental! - I got the chance to talk with Allan, who indeed was about to quit the scene and take a job as a fork lift truck driver. He actually said "I'm tired of banging my head against a wall, I've just got this gig in America to do and that's it.. " An unbelievable genius and a humble, perhaps even tortured artist. Thanks again, this is so great!

I bought this Album at one of those first three shows at the Roxy in LA when it came out. It and the show were completely ear opening. Including Gary Husband's incredibly unique drumming and Paul Carmichael's bass playing. Truly a seminal album 🎸

Love this video. It takes me back to the day in 1982 when I bought this album in a record store in Austin, Texas and the clerk let me sit down in a chair and listen to it with headphones right then and there in the store, I was so anxious to hear it. That never happened before or since. I remember sitting there with headphones on with tears in my eyes because I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, that this kind of playing was possible. Never forget that day.

Fantastic doc!!!! Thank YOU!! I was incredibly blessed to be at that packed Roxy show when Alan and Eddie jammed. Everyone knew that was a historical moment! The reaction of the entire crowd from the first song could only be described as SHOCK AND AWE!!❤❤❤

Lucky enough (blessed, really) to have seen Allan in the 80s at the Soft Rock Cafe in Vancouver. A small 200 seater and my brother-in-law and I were front row centre. We met Allan afterwards who was a complete gentleman and even let my brother-in-law play his Charvel (I didn't have the guts! lol) I was talking with with AH's manager afterwards and he said [paraphrasing] "There's this kid from Texas Allan really loves and wants to bring him on the road with us". That kid was Eric Johnson. RIP, Maestro

Excellent video! I remember seeing the IOU band in Birmingham playing this material around 1981/1982. I wasn't sure of what to make of it at the time as it sounded so different to anything else, but it's certainly stood the test of time. Amazing compositions and course, superlative playing!

Thanks very much really enjoyed the video, got to see him play live just the once, on home turf at, Leeds Irish Centre.

Thank you for making this. I have been a fan of Allan since I heard him in 1985 (Metal Fatigue). I was blown away, and still am.

I remember being in high school and having to specially order this from the local record hut. And as you may expect my contemporaries in HS looked at me like I had antlers growing out of my forehead when I'd play it for them. As far as I'm concerned it was one of the best albums he ever made.

Great retrospective on a great artist and debut album. I was so blessed to be able to see IOU in Baltimore MD during this time all those years ago. The audience was small but the impression I was left with was HUGE and unforgettable. Allan Holdsworth and this band in particular were amazing indeed. An inspiration for so many others that followed after.

I was at one of those first IOU gigs in San Fransisco in '82. It brings tears of joy to my eyes to realize that I was a part of Allan's triumphant arrival to America as a band leader after years of struggle as a side man. Thank you for putting this heart felt documentary together.

It has taken me years to get into Allan's music, and I'm still having to take his music in slowly - on a song by song basis - but it's been worth the effort. Plus, you've made me re-evaluate Paul Williams. I had assumed for some reason that vocals had been forced on the album by a producer. It also breaks my heart to hear how much hardship Allan went through during his life.

I met Allan many times. Had a beer with him once. We talked about cycling. I saw him perform for one week straight in Tempe, Az back in 1982. That’s where I bought my copy of IOU. I was part of the Holdsworth cult! Didn’t find out later that EVH was a fan! I wish I would have went to that Roxy show! Thanks for uploading!

Amazing work, congratulations! Mixed in two days, makes this album even more unique. Through this making-of, you gave Allan the respect and recognition he deserves. Thank you.

The best I’ve ever heard first heard 73 Tempest sadly missed, but his music still makes me happy and sad and feelings that words aren’t good enough,

Many many thanks for this long overdue deep dive into IOU. This album was a nexus in time and music - a zero AD or CE so to speak. I first learned of IOU in a Guitar Player magazine album review around 1981, and having already loved Enigmatic Ocean and One Of A Kind, I tried it on a whim. It utterly changed my world. There will never be another Allan Holdsworth.

Thank you so much…his music has spoken to my soul more deeply than any for years. Thanks for the taking the time 😊I can imagine videos from his other albums too…also what or where is Enby?🙂

Fantastic. Thanks for making this video.

Pretty much anything about Allan gets my vote. Thanks. Oh, you've clearly done your research. Well done. This was great.

Excellent, that was very interesting and enjoyable. A great tribute, well done and thank you.

Thanks for the beautiful video and history of the great Allan !

Thanks, I saw Allan a couple times in 82 as well as many times in later years. First time was at The Golden Bear. What a fun time that was.

Wondered job. Beautiful video with so much information!

Thank´s for this documentary about an album that changed my life! .

Stunning video and fantastically narrated! It's a shame that there's actually less info available out there on his albums from Atavachron onwards. While we know so little about the making of, say, Sand or Hard Hat Area, I suppose we can move towards the point where all his tracks are transcribed and charted. I'll try to release another transcription this month, and everyone's looking forward to the massive video John Vullo is soon releasing on all things Holdsworth.

Another great video! Thank you Ruby!

This was fantastic! Thanks for putting it together.

The most thorough and complete video on Allan's best album. Thanks so much for your work, really appreciated!

Excellent job! Thank you so much! I was one of many that saw those early IOU gigs in SF. Allan has no equal as a composer or guitarist. You have done his legacy justice here.

Excellent Ruby!! What an articulate and fantastic review.

Awesome video .. God bless Allan Holdsworth !!

...the genius album..my first and fav..Allan Holdsworth album..bought in black cover..1983.Cheers for the great doc from Australia.

Thank you so much for making this! Great video, i had no idea of all the struggles and hardship Allan had to endure. Heard the album many decades ago when i was 14 and it still amazes me.

Superb work, thank you!

This is fabulous work - thank you.

Thank you. This is an excellent, in depth presentation. Bravo!

That was great...thanks for putting that together...

This is so unbelievably good, we can't thank you enough!! Huge bravo!

Thank you for this video!👏👏👏

Thank you for a wonderful presentation ❤

Hands up to you Ruby. I did not know lots of these backgrounds. Learned lots of new stuff and more of what honest music is about. Many thanks !

Amazing video. Thank you for making it. Such an important tribute to a legend

I saw Allan play the IOU material in a London pub with his trio around 1980. It was clear he was a genius the like of which had never been seen before & would never be seen again. Yet the pub was barely full & he couldn't get a record deal as you mention 🤔 I really wish I'd had some spare money at the time as I'd gladly have have offered him some financial support to promote his music. I met Gordon & Dick Knight when they fitted the same type of stainless steel frets to my strat as they'd fitted to Allan's. Nice chaps. I like the info you give out in this vid. Though ironically allans wonderful music in the background is a little distracting when listening to your commentary

Fascinating!!! Thank you! I was at the Roxy gig when VH showed up, it was certainly my transition from VH to AH!!! Still love them both:-)

What a great video. I never new much of this information. Thank you so much!

What a fabulous story and superb presentation! Thanks for all the hard work you put into it, Ruby!

EXCELLENT. Ruby. You scared me a bit at first. But the info was so dead on that with the first 5 minutes it was realized you are seriously one fantastic journalist. You've done a justice to someone that permanently changed guitar, writing and production. Please do more.

Wow. I can't say anymore than what all the other comments have been saying. A nicely detailed synopsis of his early years leading to IOU. I didn't know about him selling his Gibson for a plane ticket. I feel a little guilty hearing how hard it was personally when all you hear is the beauty in his playing even as a sideman. I was listening recently to his solo on "Halfway House" from "The Unique Concert" album and thinking... So beautiful. Cheers for this.

Thank you, that was fantastic !

thank you for such complete journey!

Wow thank you so much. KZfaq recommendations are finally good for something ❤

Excellent , thanks

I love Dis Recud!I bought dis in San Leandro, Cali,back in 88,listen to it all the time.Heavy rotation in my collection,from IOU to Sand,good stuff!Just saying,thanks for anything on The Master!

This is a must keep album...every few months when you listen to it gives you the same ground breaking wow feeling all over again.

Love your video of the making of IOU. What a fantastic documentary. Attended very first IOU tour in San Francisco (club called The Stone). Quite an honor to become friends with Allan through the early '80s till '92, prior to leaving California. Saw Allan perform close to 30 gigs between '82 through '92. I recorded a song last year called "Egyptian Eyes." Tribute to his great inspiration throughout the main part of my career. Cheers...subscribed. 😻

Wow. Much work and love has been put into this, I can see! Great video, perfect narration, excellent effort IMO! Hopefully many new ears will get to appreciate Allan's music thanks to this, too!

fantastic video, really beautifully put together!

Brilliant Historical account of the making of a rare but excellent album ......Gary & Allan gave each other the improvisational latitude to be fully creative. I would have thought that a lot of the modern Pro Tools recording technology Allan would probably have seen as a return to 'JIGSAW MUSIC' as he called it with its non continuous live performance cut/shunt and paste assembly techniques.

Great work on telling Allans history so well thank you!

I stupidly sold my vinyl mail ordered copy of IOU in the late 80's cause never had space in the very small places I live in, and needed sell off my records. I regret this very very much, although I have IOU back in CD format. This record is still way ahead of it's time, remarkable in every aspect! Monster Album

Love Holdsworth. But never really knew his story at all. Fascinating stuff. Well done!

Very very very interesting! Many thanks!

Wow, That was awesome!!!! What a story..I was one of those fans in NYC that grabbed everything i could from him, We even had a cover band playing his songs! (Not very well, but , hey I became a professional musician afterwards) Thank you so much for this!

Amazing tribute, thank you ❤️‍🔥 I remember seeing him live here in Ottawa Canada when I was 16 in the early 80’s. EVH had turned us on and I watched in awe and delighted confusion.

Great documentary 👏 👍 👌 keep it up. Best wishes from Los Angeles California 🙌

thank you for making this video which really does justice to the genius and the incredible efforts made to carry out such a grandiose project

Great job on this

Thanks for this. Very very cool.

Very informative and inspiring! Thanks!

When that album first came out, it was mail order only. That's how I got it after hearing Allan with Bruford's and Tony Williams' albums. What blew my mind on I.O.U. was the unveiling of Allan's chordal thing; you never really witnessed that on the other people's albums that he played on.

Great video!

Beautifully done! Thank you so much for putting this all together. Shiit, I had no clue he played violin too!

Great channel. Thank you!

Here's somebody who actually saw the Roxy show with EVH. If you'll indulge me, because it is a pretty funny story. I am a musician myself (bass guitar) and as it seems that even though Allan's fans may not have been limited to musicians, those that were felt we had a special bond. So it was that my friend Cory (guitar/keys) and I had a fun ritual...as he was usually the one who found out where Allan was playing locally, he would ring me up and leave me a message on my machine; "Allan's at the Roxy"...CLICK!...or "Allan's at the Whisky"...CLICK. or even "Allan's at the (gone, but not forgotten, world-famous) Golden Bear". In fact, Allan might've been one of the last few to play in that venerable Huntington Beach club. At any rate, I was to meet up with him at the Sunset Strip club, so there I was, waiting for my notoriously late friend as downbeat grew closer. I was seriously considering going ahead inside and forgetting my friend when I saw someone bopping across Sunset, dodging traffic with an obvious bass slung over his shoulder. My goodness, I said to myself, but doesn't that look like Jeff Berlin, someone I had idolized since those Bruford sessions? I'd assumed it would've been Jimmy Johnson on bass, but whatever. As it turned out my tardy friend was not so tardy and was already waiting for me inside the club. "You'll never guess who I saw!" i said. "Well, you'll never guess who I saw" he replied. After stating that I was sure I saw Jeff Berlin jaywalking on Sunset he announced he was sure he saw Valerie Bertinelli, in a wig, in the lobby. Of course I told him he was mistaken. What would she be doing at an Allan Holdsworth show? So when EVH jumped up (with Jeff Berlin) to jam during the encore it all made sense, as , of course, she and Eddie being still married at the time. And it also made sense when I'd read years later that Allan had been working with Eddie's producer Ted Templeman for the "Road Games" EP, one of my favorites, although I'd heard different stories as to how much he was satisfied with it.

You did a great job on this and the Road Games biography video. Hope you do more....maybe Metal Fatigue?

Great commentary - thanks! ❤️

Good job, Ruby 😊

Wow, crazy details otherwise unknown. I listen to AH all the time and yet I feel like I need to listen even more now. Thanks Enby.

Great work, very interesting background information and - makes better understanding for AH style and musical journey.

dude, nicely done.

Awesome history and things I never knew... just subbed your channel love to see a follow up with his later years involving Chad Wackerman and Jimmie Johnson Gary Husband great musician also played for the awesome Level 42 and who got Holdsworth to play on their Gauranteed album.

Great documentary about Allan. I really enjoyed it and learned a few things about this extraordinary man. Thank you.

Thanks for the nice video! Here's my Allan gig experience. I went to see him as a youngster, must have been late 70s, in a club in London. I think it was in Oxford Street, maybe the 101 club. There were only 20 or 30 there, talking over the music etc. I remember Allan getting irritated. I also remember seeing him drinking a beer or two! He played as you'd expect and there were maybe 8 or 10 guitarists sitting a few feet from him. A few years later (maybe 1984) I was at music school myself, and he had moved to USA but was playing a gig in a smallish place in Old Street, London. I said to a friend, "come and see him play, there won't be many there"...... We couldn't even get in, the queue was really long, they took our money and said watch from the foyer on a monitor! I then saw him a few years after in Glasgow at the Renfrew Ferry. Did anyone else go to any of these gigs?

By far my favorite album by Allan. Having struggled with the book Reaching for the Uncommon Chord, I learned the complexity of his playing. This documentary uncovered so much detail of which I was unaware. Beyond the instrumental wizardry, I couldn't understand why I gravitated to the album. It was the ebb and flow of the time based on how it was recorded. Thank you for your work.

Great documentary. I haven't got a clue that Allan struggled so long to make ends meet before he could enjoy sufficient appreciation as a musician.

This is great! Know of him through Gong/Soft Machine/UK etc. but this was very enlightening. Great job I learned a lot thanks!

I got to open for Alan and Steve mores of the Dixie dregs in Dallas doing his IOU tour , the time of my life . I’m a bass player the other two were Gerry peak and Jeff Berlin. Alan was nice and very humble, got to say thanks and shake his hand and yes they were big , what a memory, peace Alan.

Dear Ruby, Thank you so much for this. Heard when I needed it the most. Peace and Love Jesse. P.S. I own one of the original black-covered IOU albums signed by Allan.

Great video 🎉

Cant wait to see the next episode. This so good.