BIO

BIO I spent my childhood in the San Francisco Bay area at a town called Vallejo California. We lived in a housing project and, fortunate for me, my grammar school had an orchestra which convened every Friday. I am not sure why I chose the tuba as my first instrument, but I am reasonably sure that sexual imagery didn’t influence my choice. People now ask me why I switched to bass violin in my teens and later to electric bass. I tell them that I wasn’t attracted to the girls who got off on tuba players.  I played bass violin in the Vallejo Junior Symphony as well as the school orchestra, and I played tuba in the Vallejo Municipal Band at age twelve. The Vallejo Municipal Band was made up of mostly World War Two veterans and we spent the first hour or two of rehearsals at the dimly lit bar in the Veterans Of Foreign Wars hall where I drank coke and they drank everything else. The first time I was ever paid for playing music was after marching in a parade with this band. I made ten dollars; I thought I was King Shit. We moved to Sacramento, CA when I was fourteen. My mother was very supportive and took me to see concerts such as Jazz at the philharmonic and Lionel Hampton’s band. I played mostly jazz and classical music at the time and listened to black R&B and Jazz radio stations from Oakland, CA. At about age fifteen, I started to play in jazz clubs and at "after hours" sessions in Sacramento and San Francisco. I mostly played with Jazz musicians who were into the east coast Jazz scene as opposed to the “cool” west coast style. It was the "beat" era and there were a lot of drugs floating around. A few of the players thought that the only way to play bebop was to be high on heroin. Fortunately, I escaped being involved in that scene. I was a skinny little white kid and I like to think that the older musicians were shielding me from the worst.  By 1957 and 1958 I had become an adept liar, and snuck off on weekends to hang out in San Francisco. We played at a hotel overlooking the bay in Sausalito, and clubs in San Francisco like “Streets of Paris”, “Jimbos Bop City”, and an early morning breakfast café in “The Tenderloin” district called “The Seven Eleven” where all the pushers, pimps, and prostitutes went to unwind after work. Many of the jazz musicians who came to town came to play at Jimbo’s after two AM. I heard Miles Davis there, and John Coletrane with most of his band came over one morning after their gig at the “Black hawk”. I watched with awe from the back of the room. One morning at about 3:00 a.m., I was playing at Jimbo’s with a piano player named Flip Nunez when a very imposing African-American woman came up on the stage. She had on a Pendleton shirt with a calf-length skirt and high-top work boots. This was 1958 and I had never seen anyone dressed like that. She turned around to us, whispered "blues in F" , stomped the time on the carpet-covered floor with one of her boots, and as the dust flew up from the carpet into the spotlight, started singing the blues in a growling voice that was probably heard on the next street over. I was in heaven! The singer was "Big Momma Thornton” who had had an R&B hit song called “You Ain’t Nothin’ But A Hound Dog”; a song I was to play hundreds of times with Elvis Presley later in my career. I remembered her later because she was the first “Big Momma” I had ever seen. She probably weighed three hundred pounds. By my senior year in high school, my school attendance had become so spotty that my mother firmly suggested I join the military. I went into the Navy and wound up at the Navy School of Music in Washington D.C. which offered a nine month, college accredited, musical education. I was able to study musical theory and harmony there, as well as play with some great musicians. I stayed on after the course to wait for an opening as either a tuba instructor, or as a member of the Naval Academy band at Annapolis Maryland. As usual I gravitated to the Jazz clubs. The school of music did not allow moonlighting and I was shipped out to Coronado CA. where I spent many hours on the beach and played with some great players such as drummer John Guerin and trombonist Bill Watrous. . We were eighteen and nineteen years old and played Miles Davis and John Coltrane modal influenced jazz. I worked weekends for a while at the "Black Elks Club" in San Diego with a Ray Charles type band. Every Saturday night they featured a guest artist, and I got to play with Jimmy Witherspoon, the "Three Tons Of Joy" and tenor sax player Ben Webster among others.. I came out of the service in 1961 and into a period of indecision during which I went to San Diego State College and worked nights in hotel show bands to support two sons. Darin and Jason, both musicians now. (Jason the older, took Peter Ceteras place in the group "Chicago" about fourteen years ago. Darin is very talented musically but has chosen to become an internet entrepreneur.) After leaving San Diego, I was tentative about moving to Los Angeles because I had heard so much about the competition there. I marked time for a year or so, playing with a few mediocre travelling groups and finally wound up in Palm Springs California where the hotel I was working and living in burned down along with all my instruments and belongings. With nothing to lose, I took a deep breath and moved to Los Angeles. I knew one person in Los Angeles: a saxophone player named Mike Henderson. He knew of a group at a poker club in Gardena California who needed a bass player: Ninety dollars a week and all the Pepsi I could drink. Then I got a job with The Billy Preston Review at a big nightclub called The Sands in Watts California. Billy was sixteen at the time and his mother brought him to the club and waited to take him home after the last show. He sang James Brown songs while he danced at the organ. I played electric bass and valve-trombone. The lead trumpet player, Mel Lee, and I became friends and played bebop together with the intermission trio. Mel turned me on to my first record sessions in LA, not on bass, but on valve trombone. I played valve trombone on a "Four Freshman" album among others. Oddly enough it was as a horn player that I started in the L.A. Session scene. Nobody knew I was a bass player. I wasn’t setting the world on fire and the producers didn’t call me back, but I made a living! The watts riots in 1964 brought an end to that part of my life, and sadly I was never able to participate in the black music scene again. During this same time, I started doing demo recording sessions for a producer named Gary Paxton (He produced hits such as Cherry Pie with Skip and Flip, Monster Mash, and others). One day Gary called me to do an album. We recorded in his house; the control room was in an upstairs bedroom, and we played down stairs in the living room. There was no "talk back" so we had to communicate through the drum microphones. He had a four track tape machine so the bass and drums shared a track. As I was setting up (I was playing a 1960 P- Bass through an Ampeg B-15) a group of the oddest people I had ever seen came into the room (Hippies). They were the group “The Association “We cut their first album which included the hits, "Along Comes Mary" and "Cherish”. Along Comes Mary was the first hit record I played on. It had a big, fat, bass mistake in the middle of it, but they liked the take. So because the bass and drums were on the same track, I had to live with the mistake. When Los Angeles radio started playing the song all day long, the thrill of hearing myself on the radio was dampened every time that note would come up. Two years later I was in a market where a "musak" version of "Along Comes Mary" was playing ,and wouldn’t you know it, the bass player played my exact part, bad note and all. That hit record really launched my career as a session player in Los Angeles. At this same time, I had been playing with jazz guitarist Barney Kessel for a year or two. Gary Paxton introduced me to him, and the first time I played with him was to record a live album called “Guitar on Fire." on Emerald Records. I had been playing mostly electric bass and my string bass chops were weak, but he liked my playing. During this time in the middle sixties, I was under the illusion that that I could just pick up the string bass any time I wanted to and the world would take notice. One day I heard a jazz string bass player named Scott Lafarrow: Time for a reality check. I knew I would have to devote my every waking moment to develop the virtuosity that Scott embodied in his playing, and even then, I didn’t know if I would ever reach that level. Also, jazz bass players were not known to have a record of stable income during those years --- I chose the safest and possibly most lucrative road. Soon after the Association album I became very busy. I can’t remember half the albums I played on. I never was into listening to myself, so I didn’t keep track, and at that time, most albums didn’t give musician credits. Even now I have only a hand full of albums that I have played on. Also we are talking about the wild sixties and everything that entails, so if you think about it, I am lucky to remember anything. I worked a lot with the drummers Jim Gordon, Earl Palmer, and Hal Blaine: pianist Larry Knectel, and saxophone player Jim Horn. I played on many bubble gum hits, i.e.: Tommy Rose’s "Sweet pea" Bobby Sherman’s hits, and later The Archies, and Tiny Tim. We recorded with Johnny Mathis, Johnny Rivers, Neil Diamond , Nancy Sinatra, Pat Boone, Sammy Davis Jr., Bobby Vinton, The Everly Brothers, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, The Ventures, Dionne Warwick, Barbara Streisand, Linda Ronstadt with the "Stone Ponys" "Sky Saxon and the seeds," Flamenco guitarist Carlos Montoya, Jazz guitarist Howard Roberts, Jim Neighbours, Leonard Nimoy, Judy Collins etc. A better discography can be had by going to www.allmusic.com and typing in my name. (They probably have 65 or 70% of my work listed.) In 1968, I played on an album that James Burton was also playing on. I don’t remember the artist, but I guess James liked my playing because he called me one day and told me they were putting a band together for Elvis Presley. I had never been a big Presley fan. Given my musical background, I thought he was a white singer trying to sound black. So I decided that I was going to play the audition on a lark, but that I probably wouldn’t take the job. It took about five minutes after meeting him to realize what a great guy and wonderful singer he was. Going to work for him was like going to school for me. I had never played much country music or rock and roll. I just drew on my R&B experience and approximated what I thought the bass should be doing in his music. I think he liked the energy I added, and the fact that I sounded different from what most bass players would have played behind him at that time. For the first couple of years he almost demanded that we kick him in the butt. The music was so intense. It was a kind of punk lounge music. I was playing very busy parts and to this day, I can’t listen to any of the albums we did, because everything is so intense feeling. For example, listen to "Elvis Live at Madison Square Garden" my only excuse is, I don’t think anyone else was playing bass that way at the time. Right about this time I got a call to do an album with "The Doors." We spent six weeks in the studio recording "L.A. Woman" Which turned out to be their last album. They had always used keyboard bass live, after we finished LA Woman I was approached about joining the group. Jim Morrison went to Paris and died. One of those things!  In 1971 for the sake of my sanity, I left L.A. at the height of my recording career and moved to a small island in British Columbia. I continued to work with Presley and flew to L.A. on occasion to do album projects. I kept an apartment in Vancouver BC because I was doing some recording projects there. In 1973 we made the "Aloha From Hawaii" TV special after which I quit the Presley job. I was tired and wanted to spend some time fishing, gardening, and working on my health. Elvis was very loyal as long as you didn’t quit him to go to work for someone else. Periodically the "Colonel’s" office would call. Finally in 1975 with the recording industry tightening up and producers not wanting to fly me to LA to work, I moved back to L.A. and went back to work with Presley. I worked with him until his death. In 1977, we were on a private plane flying to Bangor Main when the pilot got a message to land at Pueblo Colorado. Someone called Memphis and we were told Elvis had died. We just stood on the tarmac for a while. The only sound was sobbing from some of the people. We got on the plane and flew back to L.A. in silence. There was a terrible thunder storm as we landed and everyone just got off the plane and disappeared into the rain. I moved into a beach apartment in Malibu, CA while I built my recording career back up. During that time I put together a band to do an album for Tanya Tucker. It included drummer Paul Leim, pianist John Hobbes, and guitarist Billy Walker, all of whom have since moved to Nashville. We cut a country hit called "When I Die Just Let Me Go To Texas" I think that was the name of it! They were talking about taking the band on the road when I got a call from saxophonist Steve Douglas telling me that "Bob Dylan" was rehearsing and had fired his bass player. I went down to play with him and all of a sudden we were on our way to Europe to tour on a private train. It was a wonderful tour. We had a private dining car complete with private chef and an extensive wine collection. When we left, say, Paris for Berlin, our cars were added to a train heading for Berlin, and away we went. After we arrived in the next city, cars would take us to our hotel. Eric Clapton, Elvis Costello, Steel Pulse, and Joan Armatradin were some of the other acts on the bill. We played a concert at Zeppelin Field in Nuremberg Germany for 80,000 people. The last concert in Europe was at Blackbush Aerodrome in England for 250,000 people: the largest crowd I have ever played for live. The early eighties were spent once again rebuilding my recording career. Some of my old pals James Burton, Glen D. Hardin, Jim Horn and Hal Blain had been working with John Denver for a few years. Emery Gordy had been playing bass for John and when he left, I moved in... John was a very gracious and generous person in material ways, and I worked with him on and off until 1993. In the meantime in 1986, I was doing sessions in L.A. when producer T-bone Burnett called me to play on a couple songs for Elvis Costello. The album was called "King Of America" and I wound up playing on most of it. That began a series of albums and tours. The first tours included drummer Jim Keltner and James Burton. Pianist Benmont Tench from Tom Petty and the Heart Breakers was on one. Later tours included Attractions drummer Pete Thomas, old acquaintance Larry Knectel, and "Lounge Lizards" avant-garde guitarist Mark Rebot. During the recording of "King Of America" I met a keyboardist and budding record producer Mitchell Froom. He subsequently called me to do an album with singer songwriter guitarist Richard Thompson who had come to fame as part of the British folk rock group “Fairport Convention”. I think I have done five or six albums with Richard. He and Rebot are two of my favorite guitarists. As usual Mitchell Froom produced and played keyboards in his sparse and ingenious way. Jim Keltner and Pete Thomas played drums. Small fun band to play with!  I toured with Sam Philips (T-bones Burnett’s wife on virgin records) in 1994. T-bone played guitar and a young minimalist drummer named Josh Labell rounded out a tough small group. I’ve done five or six albums with Sam during the nineties. Song writing has been my main passion over the last few years. I’ve been attempting to write a good song and I think I might be sneaking up on a couple. In the past I wrote a song that was the last song Elvis Presley ever worked on in a recording situation. It is called, "Fire Down Below" We were at Graceland and spent an hour or so working it up when Elvis got real pale and went upstairs to lie down. An hour later he called me up to his bedroom and said he was sending everyone home. He said to cut the track and he would finish it. He never did. One of those things! I sat on this song for 25 years, but I have a new version on CD that the TCB band (James Burton, Ronnie Tutt, Glen D Harden, and myself) played on. You can order it on this website. Since 1997, the original cast from the early 70s Elvis shows (TCB Band, The Sweet Inspirations, either the Stamps Quartet or The Imperials, and Conductor Joe Guercio) have been touring with a show called Elvis The Concert. We just finished our fourth European tour in as many years, and have played to over a million people in the US, UK, Europe, Australia, and the Orient. The producer, Stig Edgrin, chose selected cuts from films and videos we had done with Elvis in the early seventies. He removed all the music except Elvis’s voice. On stage are three large digital video screens, the original cast, and a live orchestra which travels with us. Also there are camera people on stage, and in front of the stage, shooting us in the present.  The middle and largest screen shows Elvis and us onstage in the early seventies. (Over thirty years ago.) The side screens show us playing and singing in the present. In other words, the only sound that is not produced live at the present show is Elvis’s voice. While the present audience sees Elvis introducing me back in the 1970s, (On the big screen as a young man.) the audience also sees me taking a bow in the present on the side screens as the grey haired musician I am today. For us, the only differences between the shows we did with Elvis and this present show are that the present show is twice as long as the old shows and we are twice as old. The intensity is just the same, and if anything, I think the TCB band is playing even better today. Also, in the old days, we never knew what Elvis was going to do from one second to the next. That is understandably not the case now. On stage, I am using an Ampeg tube amp with eight tens, coupled with a Jerry Scheff, signature model, Lakland four string. In the studio, I am back to using the same Ampeg B-15 (1964 model) I bought in 1965, and use Lakeland basses, an old Jazz Bass with mandolin frets, and various other basses including an old Hofner Beatle Bass, and two Danos .I sometimes like to prepare basses with foam rubber, bungee cords, tape etc., depending on the song and the artist. I think the reason I still work is that I’m not afraid to take chances. Most of the producers I work with know this, and many times when the part I try doesn’t work, they give me some time to go into the booth and get a different slant on things. I don’t do well with head phones. Sometimes approaching bass playing this way has its drawbacks. I went to do a Tom Petty session a few years ago and in the middle of the rundown Tom stopped and said, "What’s that note! Jerry, What’s that note! I think Rick Rubin was producing. I could talk for hours on this subject. They pretty much wanted a generic bass part which was probably right for Tom. There are so many wonderful bass players out there that play generic bass parts perfectly. They obviously didn’t need my kind of playing with my little eccentricities. I try to be true to myself though. If the song calls for a minimalist part, I do that! But I try and use the simplicity as a hook. Anyway, I feel I am still growing as a bass player. Oldies don’t interest me very much (I am a Radio Head fan), and I still go out and "sit in" to play a little Jazz every once and a while just to keep the cobwebs clear! Thanks for taking the time to read this. Best regards, Jerry