An interesting thing about his statement that he quit Crimso...history tells a different story.  The chronology I've read goes like this:

1) After the release of Islands, an unknown band member described the quiet parts of the album as "airy-fairy sh%$"...perhaps Boz?

2) After the '71 Islands tour, Fripp fired Sinfield claiming musical differences and a loss of faith in Sinfield's ideas.  

3) The band broke up acrimoniously during subsequent rehearsals. 

4) The band agreed to patch up their differences for one more tour - with the promise they would disband after.

5) During the '72 tour everyone had a change of heart and told Fripp they wanted to stay together after all.

6) After the tour, Fripp sacked the whole lot of them anyway.

7) Boz appeared on Pete Sinfield's solo album "Still".

8) Boz joined Bad Company and made some money playing music for a change!

It appears to me as the common situation where your boss fires you, and in a flash of anger you shout, "you can't fire me, I quit" 

Comments?

You're right, nobody really knows what happened but those 5 guys, but it sure is fun trying to fill in the blanks

Based on his comment, I was also surprised Boz would have had anything to do with Sinfield's solo album...maybe he just did it to spite RF who was about the only Crimson related musician not invited to play on the album.

RF's journal quoted a Melody Maker article 4/24/71, "In fact, Fripp taught Boz to play bass from scratch, starting two months ago because they couldn't find a suitable bassist".  Based on this fact, I found Boz' remarks in the documentary especially disappointing.  If it wasn't for the situation in King Crimson that lead to RF teaching him to play bass, the Bad Company gig would never have been his and all the fame & fortune it gave him would have gone to someone else.  I would think he would have had nicer things to say about Crimso  

Ya, Boz appeared to be in his 50's when the interview used in the Bad Company doc happened...

But who cares, the fact that he is kinda nuts, was the reason he was able to provide some of the best albums ever.

Islands is still probably my favorite KC, and Burrell's singing brought a whole lot into the album.

I love Islands too.  I have several King Crimson Collectors Club live albums of the '71 and '72 tours and not only did Boz do a great job with vocals on the Islands material, he was outstanding on the Lizard tracks (Cirkus, Lady of the Dancing Water), Pictures of a City, and Schizoid Man.  I think it's ironic that he found fame and fortune as a bassist rather than a vocalist.

Fripp once said that King Crimson was "a way of doing things."  It was his band, if the musicians didn't like the way that he ran it, they were free to leave anytime.  

I find it interesting that so many musicians, including Bill Bruford, Mel Collins and others, came back into KC time and again.  

Personally, I thought Boz was a mediocre talent who filled a role that needed to be filled.  I'm very glad he hit the cash register in "Bad Company," that is the way rock & roll should work.  However, whenever anyone trashes RF, I just roll my eyes.  

His band, his party, check your ego at the door please, let's get down to business, tune your instruments. 

 

I can imagine that it takes a lot of talent to play bass on any Bad Company album!  Basic and beginner level for the most part!

Crimheads in the 70's thought it was part of the invention and  not the truthful moment.

 

After Greg Lake departed, it seemed difficult for Fripp to instruct a vocalist on what he wanted to surface through the pieces. Boz and Haskell both did a magnificent job, but hated the lyrics. Live concert recordings of Boz in 1971 displays a very serious minded progressive rock vocalist. Live concert recordings from 1972 do not. Most of the 72' concert recordings display Wallace, Collins, and Boz wishing to overthrow the progressive side to Crimso and replacing it with a more R&B/Blues aspect of things. Fripp was not a Blues guitarist and observe those concerts if you will...he sounds quite lost. Such was the case that the 3 of them...(Wallace, Collins, and Boz), moved into a different musical direction by recording an album with Alexis Korner and Snape. Playing songs that moved and breathed in the "British Blues Boom" form and almost immediately after their departure. Boz , Wallace, and Collins did an excellent job playing the pre-"Larks Tongues In Aspic/Starless" material which is available on the Islands 40th anniversary re-mix release. Boz , ironically...could fit into any material placed in front of him. That is evident and very ironic. His vocals on the Islands album are stylistically based on the sound of the Shulman brothers of Gentle Giant. For example....Boz would have done a magnificent job on "Runaway", "Edge Of Twilight" "Dog's Life" and many of the others where the vocals cross over into Folk, Blues, and dramatic poetic progressive.

 

Obviously Bad Co songs are basically simpler than KCs, but Boz does play some excellent little bass lines. Have a listen to "Feel like making love" or "Can't get enough".

How many bass players does it take to change a light bulb?

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Excellent question!!  I started on guitar very young (11), but never was serious about it until I bought a cheap bass from a friend.  I approached the bass guitar with a similar approach to guitar, mostly using a pick & pursuing a very aggressive attack on the strings.  

....like Chris Squire, Greg Lake, Ray Bennett & many others!  

I also play "thumpy" bass with my fingers, but never did get that slapping-stuff down at all.  I tend to be more melodic than rhythmic. 

In one band I was in, I did ALL instrumental lead work on a four-string electric bass, heavily processed!  The guitarist generated walls of sound through racks, and the drummer went nuts in a Stewart Copeland fashion.  I'm a decent lead guitarist, but those leads on bass were excellent!  Sorry to say the tapes were lost! 

Doesn't matter what you play or how you play it, the end result is what matters.  

 

I think that "rock music" will eventually add a "bass guitar" to its orchestra design ... just like the electric guitar.

 

Those two have been developed a lot better and further than most other instruments, specially when the synthesizer is nothing but a replacement for another instrument in an orchestra.

 

In general, from my perspective, classical music has not had the repetitive and contextual basis that rock music (and jazz!) has defined for itself ... and this creates more possibilities for the future by the time the two mix and match and learn to play together.

 

There is a thread, or group of folks, that do not believe that anything that is "popular music", of which the "electric" contingent belongs to and is a part of, will EVER be a part of music history ... and I think that is incorrect. Music has always shown improvements, and additions and other factors in its history, and I think that rock music will help a lot of new things in the future ... and the likes of work, like Mike Oldfield, guitar over the orchestration, will be more and more visible in the future. Unffortunately, most of us will be long dead and gone to find out about all that ... but if something like that does not happen, "classical music" will probably die after 500 years! Replaced by music that is more forceful, has more personality, and clearly defines the human nature and potential a lot better than before ... because it allows emotion with vocals, something that most classical music has very little off, and has had 500 years to address, and didn't!

 

I wonder if we are thinking of slapping as some sort of process that belongs in the music ... and I have always thought it was more of an accent than it was anything else ... weird to see it thought of as a process that belongs in music!