Aamir Zaki: Pakistan's greatest guitar hero

Published June 2, 2017
Zaki’s last solo music video.

My earliest memory of Aamir Zaki is foggy. But this much I remember: He came to my school when I was very, very young.

He sang Mera Pyaar on an acoustic guitar and I immediately knew what I wanted. I wanted a guitar and I wanted to play like him. How ignorant of me.

Many years later, in 2009-10, I was part of a blues-rock band called Spoonful in college. Someone told us Zaki was looking for some guys to play with. He wanted to start performing again. And that person had told him about my band.

Zaki graciously agreed to come jam with us. He brought a small Roland amp with him, too small to cut through the drums and the large amps we'd piled up in a rather small room at my friend's house.

But Zaki didn't need a large amplifier. He didn't even need any pedals or processors. He just plugged his strat into the small Roland contraption and blew our minds.

The author playing with Aamir Zaki at T2F.

In consequent jam sessions, we arranged for a bigger Fender amplifier for him. He would gleefully turn it all the way up. We all probably lost a bit of our hearing in those jams. Just as well. We may never ever hear something like that again. I will certainly never hear another guitar player like him.

There's so much that will be written about him in the coming days. About his ability to serve the song, to let it rip when he wanted to. He was Pakistan's greatest guitar hero, our Jimi Hendrix, our Stevie Ray, our troubled, enigmatic rockstar.

Aamir Zaki —  a misplaced genius.— Fayyaz Ahmed
Aamir Zaki — a misplaced genius.— Fayyaz Ahmed

My band and I saw his demons too. We knew he was a misplaced genius. He refused to compromise on his music and self even when he fell on hard times.

We could tell that his famous friends were wary of his eccentricities. They wanted someone reliable, someone who fit the mould of the corporate-sponsored cupcake that mainstream music had become.

I’m glad he eventually featured in Coke Studio. But when I saw him sitting there playing a humbucker guitar as opposed to the shrieking single-coil strat he loved, poker-faced, unsmiling, I knew he wasn’t really there. He didn’t deserve to be either.

He deserved to tour the world, to record dozens of incredible albums like Signature. I knew he had these songs in him that he couldn’t wait for the world to hear. We were privileged to hear them, unaffected by the glam of the stage, at my friend’s house.

We would be in awe of his ability, even when he would be lecturing us on the lack of our own. But he never really put us down. He never told me how bad a player I was. On the contrary, he gave me one of his guitars. Just like that.

We were driving back home from a gig and he asked me if I liked the guitar. I told him I thought it was great and he just handed it to me. "Keep it". He later joked how he would not sign it because I’d sell it for a fortune after he died. How ignorant of him.


What is your memory of Aamir Zaki? Tell us at blog@dawn.com


The writer is a desk editor at Herald.

Opinion

Editorial

Mineral wealth
Updated 10 Apr, 2025

Mineral wealth

The Baloch unrest is partly the result of the belief that the province’s resources are being used for the rest of the country rather than for Balochistan’s economic development.
Senate shortfalls
10 Apr, 2025

Senate shortfalls

THE latest Citizens’ Report by Pildat on the performance of the Senate of Pakistan is a sobering account of...
Crypto coup
10 Apr, 2025

Crypto coup

IT is quite the coup. One of the most recognisable names in the global cryptocurrency market has been roped in by ...
Following through
Updated 09 Apr, 2025

Following through

Reconciliation, development, and deradicalisation initiatives cannot remain dormant words in a policy document.
Robe rebellion
09 Apr, 2025

Robe rebellion

THE unrest within the Islamabad High Court shows no sign of abating, and it is perhaps just as well that the ...
Fearing birth
09 Apr, 2025

Fearing birth

AMID dramatic aid cuts, the WHO has sounded the alarm about the dangers to Pakistan’s mothers and newborns, asking...