Rockstars sing Trevor Rabin’s praises

“Acoustic, electric, digital, he can do it all, and he does.” This is how American Oscar, Grammy, and Golden Globe-winning composer Paul Williams described South African-born singer-songwriter and composer Trevor Rabin on Rabin’s winning of this year’s Absa Jewish Achiever Special and Extraordinary Award.

Although Rabin was unable to attend this year’s Absa Jewish Achiever Awards, he accepted the award online from his home in Los Angeles, California.

“It’s such an honour to get this award,” he said. “I feel blessed to get it after quite a long career. It’s an honour and so enjoyable to be speaking to people about it, and to have got involved in looking at my past and how beautifully it’s been acknowledged.”

Rabin was lead guitarist, composer, and singer of what became the most successful pop music act in South African History, Rabbitt, with Neil Cloud, Ronnie Robot (Friedman), and Duncan Faure. He later moved to Los Angeles and was offered the opportunity to join in on a session with the band, Yes, and went on to play in the band for 12 years.

Jon Anderson, the lead singer of Yes, said Rabin’s talent was so unique, he felt so fortunate to get “to work with someone who is just not of this planet”.

Said Rabin, “We had one jam together [with Yes], and that was the beginning of that. I wrote what became 90125, the Yes album, which included Owner of a Lonely Heart. There was streamlined, quirky songwriting that revitalised Yes, creatively and commercially.”

Manfred Mann, the leader of Manfred Mann’s Earth Band and a collaborator of Rabin, recalled how easy Rabin was to work with, not only because they share a similar background. Said Mann, “To this day, it’s easy to work with him. Easy is an incredibly big word in music. Forget what everyone else says.

“It was so meaningful, just two souls coming together. I remember being in the studio, and we were working away and having struggles and problems. And Trevor kind of politely suggested that we all bugger off and just let him start from scratch,” Mann said.

Rabin worked in sessions with many famous musicians, one of whom was Bob Dylan, who Rabin described as being “kind of strange, but simple and enjoyable”.

Rabin went on to explain the process that he and Michael Jackson went through in creating the hit track They don’t really care about us as one that he will never forget. “Michael Jackson said, ‘I’m gonna explain the song to you before I play to you,’ and he sat on the chair and with his legs, his tongue, his hands, and his gestures, performed the song, just him on his own,” said Rabin. “And I remember pointing at him and saying, ‘You should put that on a DVD. Forget about the record.’ It was so amazing.”

Rabin said that when he played a synthesiser riff of the song, Jackson “burst out laughing, and put it on the record. He put his hand in front of his mouth, and said, ‘Oh, you’re so fast.’”

Rabin had the opportunity to get into orchestration, and he has composed soundtracks for at least 50 movies and 50 television shows, all of which started off with him giving a guitar lesson to actor Steven Seagal.

Said Jerry Bruckheimer, whose films Rabin has scored, “I didn’t even know you did movies for us. I thought that would ruin your career, but fortunately, you’ve survived us, and you’ve gone on to create great things.”

Derek Rabin, Trevor’s brother and an entertainment lawyer, said, “The significant scores that he has done and songs he has written will be around for a while.”