For me I had no choice but to be a musician. I was born into a musical family in Brooklyn. I have four brothers who play everything. I moved to Jamaica Queens at around 9 years old.At that time,Jamaica had all the great musicians playing today.All we did back then was Jam.It was a great time to back then. My older Brothers Gene and Harry had a band back then. They are 11 and 12 years older than me. After their rehearsal, I use to go down in the basement and have my choice of all the instruments they left behind. Because of that I ended up playing all of it, but guitar was the one I chose. My influences on guitar were my brother Gene, Jimi Hendrix, James Brown, Motown, Rolling Stones, The Beatles, and the Jackson 5. I loved guitar because I could solo. I love to solo. Played for a while, then my parents changed churches and I met Eddie and Tony Simpson. Eddie played guitar and Tony played the organ. They were 2 years older and asked me if I played bass. I started playing bass and Lionel played drums in the Church. We took all those church songs on Sunday and put the James Brown groove to them. That was cool. The church people didn’t know what was going on, but the congregation grew big time.I started high school, and went to Andrew Jackson. Eddie And Tony went to August Martin and started a band called Air. I was only 15 at the time. I couldn’t hang out with them because of my father. They told me they found this great drummer. His name was Richie Ruiz. They put him in the band. One day Tony came and took me to one of their rehearsals. I played one song, Mandrill. They told me to wait outside. Then next thing I knew the bass player came up with his bass and I was now the bass player for Air. In the band at that time was Tony Henson on sax, Jerome, now known now as Najee on sax also. It was a band with 5 horns, and a full rhythm section. We did all of Mandrill, Kool and the Gang, all the hot stuff at the time. Then Richie told me to take this album and listen. When I got home and heard the album, I stayed home for three days. It was Stanley Clarke. I knew then I was a bass player for life. Every album he did, I got. I then got into Weather Report, Return to Forever and the whole fusion thing. I was a WRVR fan. I learned all that stuff at the speed faster that the right speed. All day every day. The band Air went from a R&B band to a fusion band. I remember a concert we did with all the local Bands at Spring Field High School. It was packed. We were the 4th band to go on, out of 5. We did 3 Return to Forever songs. When we finished, you could hear a pin drop from the inside the auditorium . The audience didn’t even applaud. When the MD came out he said, “you kids really don’t know what you just heard!â€. We did get the respect from every band that played that night. From that night on my life changed!
Influences on Bass
My brother Harry,
Bootsy, and all of James Brown bass players,
Stanley Clarke,
Larry Graham,
Alfonso Johnson,
Jaco,
Marcus Miller,
Francis Pestini (Tower of Power), and
Ron CarterI love to play bass, and always will to the day I die!
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