Gary James' Interview With Studio Musician
Reggie McBride



Reggie McBride has played with the best of 'em. As a session bassist he's worked with Stevie Wonder, B.B. King, Elton John, Rod Stewart, Wilson Picket, Eric Burdon, Tina Turner, Billy Preston... well, you get the idea. Reggie McBride has been around. We spoke with Reggie recently about his life in music.

Q - Tough time to be a musician, Reggie, isn't it. (Spring 2020)

A - Oh, yeah. It's real tough to be anything right now.

Q - Here's the thing about the profession you're in, you've actually been practicing this social distancing for your whole career I imagine. As a session musician, you go into a studio and maybe you're laying down the bass part when no one is there? Or if they are there, you're in an isolated booth?

A - Well no, not really. Back in the day we showed up most of the time. The rhythm section played together in the same room, but it was about ten by twenty, something like that. Some studios were a lot bigger because they'd sit the string section and the orchestra at the same time everything went down. But to keep isolated I went direct most of the time. Most of the instruments went direct without an amp. Or if you did have an amp they'd mic them separately so they could have a bass track with a little speaker. But direct for me most of the time.

Q - Has that been going on of late, or for a long time?

A - Oh, for a long time, and lately too. It's been like that ever since I remember. For a long time, never who I recorded with, they separated that leakage. In my experience some producers like to use that leakage too in the track. They put the leakage on another track because the sound of the room blended in with everybody.

Q - How much work is there for a session musician these days? Even before COVID-19 I was reading that the recording industry had taken a nose dive. Is it still the same for you?

A - Not really. I mean, it's gone down for me, for guys my age. It's gone down because they just don't record the same kind of music anymore for the most part. We used to do sessions every day. We did two or three sessions in different studios every day. We were doing so many sessions that a contractor would call us and say be at this studio and the hours were set, union hours. Ten to one in the morning, then there's two to six in the afternoon and six to midnight. They called it Golden Time then because you got three times the scale after six o'clock. So, we liked that. (laughs)

Q - I can imagine! If a producer called you and said, Reggie, I want you at such and such a time and you said, "I can't make it," would that producer call you again?

A - If you have another session already booked, you tell the producer, "I can't make it today. If you book it another day I'll be glad to make it when I'm available," because we all had a schedule. He would just go to the next guy and try to find another bass there, or he'd have me recommend somebody and I would send them in as a substitute. It worked out that way because there were many bass players in town, in L.A. especially, that were interchangeable. It depended on the producer and it depended on the arranger because sometimes the arranger would say, "I wrote this bass out for Reggie because I know the way he plays. We gotta have him." The producer would just say, "Hold up. He can't make it today. He could make it tomorrow or he could make it next week. We have to push it until he gets back in town or until he's available." They did that a lot with musicians because we had interchangeable schedules. It depended on the record company whether they could wait for the producer to do the tracks. If the producer is under pressure to get that album out, he's gonna get those tracks. He will say, "I just can't wait. I've got to get it done." Most of the time you could find somebody else as a replacement.

Q - Is being a studio musician a tough clique to get into? If you blow into a music city like New York, Los Angeles or Nashville thinking you're going to work with a top rated producer, that's not going to happen, is it?

A - No, unless you played on a hit. When I first came to town I had played on a few hits right out of the box. So, my phone was ringing off the hook because they want somebody who's already done some Gold records, or some Platinum records. They don't want to waste time then and experiment with anybody most of the time. They would just try to find the guy who played on the hits and they would get him first. They had like a list, which is something I didn't really know, but I learned later on. When you play on a hit record they put your name on a list. "Well, he's the number one call. He's the number two call." This is all done by reputation, but the contractors really kept track of that a lot. So, when my name came up they said, "Well, we gotta get him because he played on such and such and he'd be perfect for this project."

Q - Somebody was following those Billboard charts very closely.

A - Oh, yeah. They used to do that.

Q - You were 8 years old when you picked up a bass guitar? Why bass? Did you hear somebody or see somebody on TV playing a bass guitar?

A - Well, the way it happened, it was funny. I was in a band when I was about 10 years old. I was playing with a band called The Matadors. I grew up in Detroit. I lived outside of Detroit in the suburb of Dearborn, in a little town called Inkster. I didn't realize it at the time, but Inkster was very musical. That was my first band. We had five horn players. We had like a couple of guitar players. I could play by ear. I was born with perfect pitch. So, what happened was we would practice every day until our parents came downstairs and said, "You gotta stop!" (laughs) We really grinded it out, a lot of songs. I was playing guitar first. My parents bought me a guitar. I begged 'em for a guitar. "I gotta play guitar!" I saw somebody play guitar first. I wanted that! So, I started playing guitar and with this band. The drummer came over and asked me, "Man, we need a bass." I said, "What's that?" I didn't know what the bass actually was. I was playing guitar with the band. So, I said, "Oh, a low sounding instrument." So, I tuned my guitar, the top four strings, down an octave, (laughs) if you can imagine how sloppy that was. It worked. It sounded like a baritone guitar playing bass. We used to borrow this guy's bass who lived around the corner. The drummer would promise him, "Hey man, you'll get to play. Let Reggie play," 'cause I knew all the songs and I was arranging the band. I was actually telling everybody what to do musically, the horns, everything.

Q - At what age?

A - Ten years, eleven years old.

Q - How old were the other guys in the band?

A - Oh, they were 18, 19.

Q - They could play bars back then, but you couldn't, could you?

A - Well, they snuck me in. I had a big 'fro. By the time I was 13 I had a 'fro. I looked the part. They snuck me in. Bar owners back then didn't really care as long as you could play. (laughs) They said, "Yeah, c'mon in. Wow! You guys sound great. You've got a reputation. I'm not gonna say anything." So, they sort of snuck me in a lot of times. Some people were like chaperones. I asked my Mom and Dad, "I'm going out to play." "Where?" "I'm gonna play at this bar." They would have to explain it to my Mom and Dad where I was going. They said, "Don't worry about it. He'll be safe." The weird thing about it is one day we had a gig to do. So, I invited my Mom to come to the gig and they (Mom and Dad) sat right in the front row. I didn't know there was a stripper that was gonna open the show. (laughs) She came out. I think we played a couple of songs and the she came out and started doing this dance. She went up to my Dad while my Mom was sitting there and sat on his lap. (laughs)

Q - That probably didn't go over so well with your mother.

A - (laughs) No, it didn't. After that they said, "Reggie, we can't see you doing this." But I said, "I gotta play." I was about 13 or 14 then. I said, "I don't care about all that other stuff. I'm just here for the music." So, we finally convinced my parents that that's what I was really interested in, the music, not what goes on around us, because there's a lot going on. (laughs)

Q - John Lennon said the reason guys get into bands is to get girls.

A - Right. Well, I think that was part of it. The most important thing is music and the fans were something extra that came along with the package.

Q - At 14 then you became a session musician?

A - I did my first session because my oldest brother was a producer. He produced local stuff and he knew everybody in town and everybody knew him. He had a group called The Gaslight and he invited me to come down and see one of their sessions. They actually recorded at Motown at the Pack Three Studio. That's the studio across town. Motown really corralled all their musicians. "You're gonna play in this room. This is where we cut all the tracks. Don't go to that other room because you're supposed to be hip. They kind of rock." When I came to the studio my brother picked me up. I stood in the control room and I watched them cut with Bob Babbitt on bass, Uriel Jones on drums, a Motown drummer, Rod Lumpkin on keyboards, and Rudy Robinson on piano. So, they had Eddie from Motown on guitar. I was surprised, when it was my turn to play I had my bass in my hand. I went in there and sat down and Bob Babbitt got up and left. He had to go to another session. So, that was my first session. I mean, there were some heavyweight guys. The arranger was Paul Reiser. I wasn't really that good a reader then. So, he put the music in front of me. But, if I can back up just a little bit. I watched that session go down with Bob Babbitt. They used two bass players at Motown for all of those Motown tracks that you hear. James Jamerson was the main guy and the other guy was Bob Babbitt, who was a White guy. He was a big guy. There was Dennis Carleton. He was the guitar player on "Cloud Nine" and all of the stuff of The Temptations. All of these guys were just fantastic. We knew all their names from growing up in Detroit, because we would ask, "Who's that playing on that record?" It would be "My Girl". We knew who all those guys were 'cause we lived in the same town. We'd been knowing who James Jamerson was since I was 5 'cause my brothers used to keep up with that. We ended up moving back to Detroit. My father was a contractor, a building contractor, and we ended up moving into a new neighborhood in Detroit from Inkster. And James Jamerson lived down the street, which was really amazing to me. He lived four houses down. Never got a chance to see him until later on when I came out to California. Him and I talked for a long time. I said, "James, did you know I lived down the street from you, four houses down?" I knew his son. He used to come over and play with us. Not instruments. We were kids. We would play. It was James Jamerson Jr. This is one of the guys who really built Motown. He never really did get the credit for it.

Q - Until years later.

A - Until years later when people knew his name. Then when I got out here (California) he was doing sessions. A lot of musicians, when Motown moved, made the move from Detroit to California in '73. That's when I was with Stevie Wonder. I also came out here.

Q - Before Stevie Wonder, you went on the road with a group called The Dramatics, who were opening for James Brown.

A - That's right.

Q - How old were you then?

A - 15. (laughs)

Q - Was that just a Summer gig?

A - Well, it turned into the Summer gig, but The Dramatics had the hit out, "What You See Is What You Get" It was a big hit. (Billboard #20 in 1971) We used to play The Apollo Theatre in New York two times a month. I was doing gigs with The Dramtics and James Brown picked up on it. He liked The Dramtics. He liked the music. The Dramatics were on a label called Stax Records. When I was 15 one of my best friends was the drummer for The Dramatics. He said, "Hey man, They need a bass player." We had been playing together for a long time and knowing each other. I said, "Sure. I'd love t go on the road." So, it was the Summer. I was in the tenth grade and I toured with them. Then by the time I was in the eleventh grade I toured with them a little bit more. I didn't have a diploma yet. James Brown sent me home. He said, "Listen, we're all gonna take a break." That meant that he was gonna take a break and we were gonna take a break. So, I could go home and get my GED. He said, "When you get your GED, you come on back," and that's what I did. So, I pretty much dropped out of high school because I was working 24/7 on the road. I just took the GED. I studied for a couple of weeks and got my diploma and went right back on the road. I got the gig with The Dramatics and then James Brown wanted us to open the show. I don't know if you ever saw the James Brown show, but he traveled with a comedian. He had a whole show. He had groups to open up for him. He had people to come on first before he came on with The James Brown Revue. That band was tight. That was the greatest experience of my life. I got to watch them from the side of the stage and watch the JBs play. It was just fantastic. For me, being 15 years old and see that really educated me on how to play with a rhythm section even more. I love James Brown. We bought all his records when we were kids. For me to be on the same stage with them was just a dream.

Q - Did the kids you were going to school with know you were on the road with James Brown?

A - Yeah, they did.

Q - Did they ask you questions?

A - It was very abnormal, I'll tell you that. When I'd come off the road all my friends would be playing soccer in the street or whatever, baseball. They'd say, "C'mom Reg, you wanna play?" I'd say, "I don't have time. I gotta catch a plane." (laughs) "I gotta be in New York," or whatever. That was a strange thing. Me and my friends used to play football, baseball, everything. I said, "I don't have time anymore to hang out. I gotta go to work."

Q - In 2005 you released a solo album. Is that correct?

A - Yes, it is.

Q - Since 2005, have you released any other recorded material?

A - I haven't released anything. I'm working on something now.

© Gary James. All rights reserved.

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