There has been a bunch of additional conversation with Allan's daughter and some of the close friends of both her and Allan, and she will be seeing him this weekend, to present some ideas to him that would help him firstly get back the gear HE needs to be able to continue to record, and secondly to get him some funding to ease his financial woes, again so that he can set about returning to recording.
 
The ideas they will be working out today and tomorrow will have to not only make sense to do in the first place, they also will need to be something that Allan is OK with agreeing to - and being as particular (stubborn) as he is talented - that is indeed part of it.  He is SUCH a humble guy, who is just trying to be the best Allan Holdsworth he can be - doing what he does, and all of those qualities that have kept him so far atop the pinnacle of playing virtuosity, both help him and hinder him, and that paradox has been part of what has moved him both forward and backward - his whole life.
 
There are several thousand fans that do wish to assist - and I DO believe something will work out for him.  His daughter, Louise, will be seeking a detailed list of equipment he needs in order to be able to record, and with some financial assistance, or through selling autographed pics/CD's, and/or some clinics or multi-artist promotional concerts, and such, the goal is to get the gear and enough money cushion that he can record - with no strings attached.  That would seem the ideal solution - I can't imagine him playing Mustang Sally and Margaritaville to get by, but I think he will be OK.
 
I feel most sad that he seems to have had to sell his beloved SynthAx - long a defunct company, but insanely brilliant in its design - just to expensive to take off to get enough sales to stay in business - but it seems there are very very small and dwindling numbers of them that still function on this planet, and that must have KILLED him to have to do it.
 
But, one WOULD be able to buy a gigantic bunch of Ramen noodles with the proceeds of selling such a rare and priceless piece of gear.
 
Bob Bone
 

jamesg1213
Having read it twice (not easy in that red text) I don't have a huge amount of sympathy either really. Someone of his age and experience should have knocked that on the head a lot sooner, like as soon as the guy wanted 15% each for him and his partner.

 
Ditto.  It's not like he's a "new to the business starving artist" willing to sign a contract without reading it.  The artist focused on his music aspect I get, but that aside.... man, he should have known better.

That's why you use a contract and that's why you have a lawyer who represents YOUR interests explain it to you. You don't work with verbal agreements and you don't take the word of an agent wanting to represent you. Had there been a contract, the business partner pulling in another partner would have been against the terms of the original contract and the agent would have had to pay him from his 15% or renegotiate the contract completely.  For the agent to control 100% of merchandising is just insane. Did Holdsworth even have anything in writing?
 
I too think this is a self-inflicted wound.  He should have known better. As long as he has been in the business, (decades) and the money that he has obviously made through the years, it would seem that he's also a poor money manager to be so broke that he's resorting to selling the very gear he uses to make  his records just to live.  Of course, I also don't know his personal situation and there are countless stories of rock stars working at the local grocery store stocking shelves and bagging groceries or living on the streets in cardboard boxes, who once lived in mansions, flew to gigs on Lear Jets, and rode in chauffeured limousines.
 
A sad story and a reminder to read the contract carefully and know who you are doing business with.

I'll just refer Mr. Holdsworth to my signature at the bottom.
 
As a side note, trying to dig himself out of this hole by recording and trying to sell the efforts is a waste of time at this point in history. I think he'd be better served by contacting a reputable promoter and doing some shows. Someone of his stature should be able to round up some sidemen to assist him.

So Bob Bone suggested (in the OP) that some crowdfunding could help Allan get out of his woes that were derived from crowdfunding.

This thread is a tough read
That's all I got for now .I will spare you my opinions .
 
Kenny

bapu
So Bob Bone suggested (in the OP) that some crowdfunding could help Allan get out of his woes that were derived from crowdfunding.

I thought the situation was worth noting - and provided information on what others were attempting to do - I do remember watching the Earth video - (I think that was it - where he was talking about a crowd-funded project - I did not participate).
 
I didn't pay attention to whatever it was that happened to that project, until seeing his daughter's posting of Allan's open letter.  I certainly have no knowledge of what did or didn't take place, or was written into any of whatever agreements any participating party put together.
 
The whole thing seemed a big, sad, mess, and I thought it worth posting.
 
I also want to apologize for my very badly worded initial sentence of this thread.  I was trying to indicate the letter was Allan's response to the two others that ALLAN maintains duped him into whatever the terms of that project were.  I have ZERO awareness of whatever those terms of that project were (outside of Allan's comments on them) - and hadn't participated in that project.  
 
My intent in creating this thread was to provide awareness of there being a fairly bad situation with regard to a legendary guitar player, and while I provided the links to the Facebook thread where the letter had been posted - in case anyone wanted to consider the situation - I did not intend to convey my asking anyone here to do anything or not do anything.  I did express a hope that enough folks in his fan base would come together to work something out for him to get past the current state of affairs for him - in my going back and reading how I phrased things, I certainly could have done a better job of wording my comments.  
 
Thank you Bapu, for alerting me to some poorly worded thoughts in my initial post - I usually try to be much better at posting - was up all night to start with, and exhausted from working on configuring multiple laptops from hell, when I ran across that open letter in the first place and was pretty shocked at the whole situation.
 
I DO hope his situation can get stabilized - and altered really at his end - to avoid continuing to be in that sort of position moving forward.
 
For MY part - I will work harder at wording my posts better.  I don't think a single day goes by where I don't learn something from these forums, and that is a strong motivator to me to do my best to help others in the forums feel the same way - paying it forward.
 
Thank you, 
 
Bob Bone
 

DOH!
 
(Sorry Bob, couldn't resist.)

Bob,
 
Paulo says I could/should/would consider to assume that I'm wrong about everything.
 
You can too.

I don't think this is a bad post, and hey Mr. Holdsworth had a cup of coffee with Level 42, so I'm a fan.
Hope he can make his life work again, and kudos to any who can help him. Sorry he got ripped off.
 
Perhaps a change of perspective might offer some comfort:
 

 
another plight . . .
 
-Tom

Hi,
 
Heck, if it wasn't a goon or two, or somebody else, it would be the IRS, and then the Medicare folks that a President is trying to rip and hurt, and then the lower ....................................