Doug Wimbish | |
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Background information | |
Birth name | Douglas Arthur Wimbish |
Born | Hartford, Connecticut, U.S. | September 22, 1956
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Website | dougwimbish |
Douglas Arthur Wimbish (born September 22, 1956) is an American bassist, primarily known for being a member of rock band Living Colour and funk/dub/hip hop collective Tackhead, and as a session musician with artists such as Sugarhill Gang, [1] Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, The Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger, Depeche Mode, James Brown, Annie Lennox, Tarja Turunen, and Barrington Levy (as well as his studio work for the rap/hip hop label Sugarhill Records and the experimental dub label On-U Sound).
Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Wimbish started playing guitar at the age of 12 and switched to bass guitar at the age of 14. In 1979 he was hired together with guitarist Skip McDonald and drummer Keith LeBlanc to form the house rhythm section for Sugarhill Records. Although they did not play on the Sugarhill Gang's famous song "Rapper's Delight" (the rhythm tracks for this song were played by the group Positive Force), they did play on many other popular song tracks, including "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, "White Lines" by Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel, "New York City" by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, and "Apache" by the Sugarhill Gang.
Together with McDonald and LeBlanc, Wimbish headed to London in 1984 and started working with producer Adrian Sherwood and formed the group Tackhead. Together with Tackhead and as a session bassist, Wimbish found himself in demand as a bass player for many artists and was considered as a permanent sideman for the Rolling Stones after the departure of bassist Bill Wyman in 1993, but lost the position to Darryl Jones. In the late 1980s Wimbish began crossing paths with vocalist Bernard Fowler, who collaborated with Tackhead and Little Axe. Both sang on records by the Rolling Stones, and Wimbish later played on the Stones' 1997 album Bridges to Babylon . Wimbish joined Living Colour in 1992 (he replaced Muzz Skillings, who left the band) to tour and record the album, Stain.
Living Colour disbanded in 1995, and Wimbish joined his old Sugarhill Gang partners to play in Little Axe, an ambient-dub project initiated by Skip 'Little Axe' MacDonald.
After Living Colour disbanded, Wimbish went back to London to continue his career as a studio bassist. In 1999 he formed the drum and bass group Jungle Funk together with drummer Will Calhoun and percussionist/vocalist Vinx. Also in 1999, Wimbish solo album Trippy Notes for Bass was released. In 2000, Living Colour was re-formed and toured in the United States, South America and Europe. In 2001 and 2002 Wimbish recorded and played with rapper Mos Def in a band called BlackJack Johnson, which also featured members of P-Funk and Bad Brains in the lineup.
Wimbish also formed Head Fake, a drum and bass project with drummer Will Calhoun. They released a CD, In The Area. In 2005 they started recording new songs. The recording took place in Brussels, Belgium and was followed by an extensive European tour. The CD has never been released. A Head>>Fake DVD was released in 2008. It features a recording of a Head>>Fake concert in Prague.
In 2008 Wimbish, signed with Enja Records, and released his second solo album, CinemaSonics.
In 2009, Living Colour released and toured for the album "The Chair in the Doorway".
Wimbish was also featured on six Little Axe albums with Alan Glen on harmonica.
Wimbish has endorsed Ibanez [2] and Spector bass guitars. [3]
Solo albums
With Michael Bolton
With Naomi Campbell
With Chris Catena
With Depeche Mode
With Will Downing
With Sheena Easton
With Bernard Fowler
With Gary Go
With Al Green
With Nona Hendryx
With Mick Jagger
With Billy Idol
With Annie Lennox
With Madonna
With Melba Moore
With Nicole Renée
With The Rolling Stones
With Joe Satriani
With Carly Simon
With Brenda K. Starr
With Candi Staton
With Steven Van Zandt
With Peter Wolf
With Ronnie Wood
Living Colour is an American rock band from New York City, formed in 1984. The band currently consists of guitarist Vernon Reid, lead vocalist Corey Glover, drummer Will Calhoun and bassist Doug Wimbish. Stylistically, their music is a creative fusion influenced by heavy metal, funk, jazz, hip hop, punk, and alternative rock. The band's lyrics range from the personal to the political, including social commentary on racism in the United States.
Tackhead is an industrial hip-hop group that was most active during the 1980s and early 1990s, and briefly reformed in 2004 for a tour. Their music occupies the territory where funk, dub, industrial music and electronica intersect. The core members were Doug Wimbish (bass), Keith LeBlanc (percussion) and Skip McDonald (guitar) and producer Adrian Sherwood. Despite being short-lived as a band proper, the legacy and output of these groups of musicians has been prodigious.
Gavin Christopher was an American R&B singer, songwriter, musician, and producer.
William Calhoun is an American drummer who is a member of the rock band Living Colour.
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five were an American hip hop group formed in the South Bronx of New York City in 1978. The group's members were Grandmaster Flash, Kidd Creole, Keef Cowboy, Melle Mel, Scorpio, and Rahiem. The group's use of turntablism, breakbeat DJing, and conscious lyricism were significant in the early development of hip hop music.
The Message is the debut studio album by American hip hop group Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, released on October 3, 1982 by Sugar Hill Records. It features the influential title track and hip hop single "The Message".
"The Message" is a song by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. It was released as a single by Sugar Hill Records on July 1, 1982, and was later featured on the group's debut studio album of the same name.
Bernard Fowler is an American musician. He is known for a long association with The Rolling Stones, providing backing vocals since 1989 and on their studio recordings and live tours. Fowler has been a featured guest vocalist on the majority of solo albums released by the members of that band. He has released two solo albums, and he has also been a regular featured singer on other musicians' recordings and tours. Fowler has toured and recorded with the bands Tackhead and Bad Dog and occasionally with Nicklebag and Little Axe.
Skip McDonald is an American musician who also performs under the stage name Little Axe.
Keith LeBlanc was an American drummer and record producer who was a member of the bands Little Axe and Tackhead.
Grandmaster Melle Mel and the Furious Five was released in 1984 by Sugarhill Records after the split between Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel. For this album, Melle Mel kept the group name 'the Furious Five' and used the title 'Grandmaster'. Rappers Cowboy and Scorpio left with Melle Mel although Mel's brother The Kidd Creole and Rahiem remained with Flash. New rappers King Lou, Kami Kaze, and Tommy Gunn joined, as did Flash's best friend E. Z. Mike as DJ.
Short and Sweet is a 1992 album recorded by the American singer Little Annie.
Friendly as a Hand Grenade is an album by the American band Tackhead. It was released in 1989 through TVT Records.
Fats Comet was a British/American industrial hip hop group formed by Adrian Sherwood, Keith LeBlanc, Skip McDonald and Doug Wimbish. The band was known for producing dance tracks that were densely layered in samples and ahead of their time. In a 1987 article in Spin, Scott Burlingham commented that "songs like "Bop Bop" and "Stormy Weather" are three years old and they still don't fit in." The members eventually shifted their focus to another project Tackhead, under which they continue to produce music.
Strange Parcels was an industrial hip-hop group, formed in 1991. The nucleus was guitarist Skip McDonald, drummer Keith LeBlanc and bassist Doug Wimbish. The group also enlisted the aid of numerous guest musicians, including Mark Stewart, Bim Sherman, Jesse Rae, Talvin Singh and Basil Clarke.
Jungle Funk is a drum and bass group formed by Vinx De'Jon Parrette, Will Calhoun and Doug Wimbish. Beginning in 1996, they performed over one hundred and fifty shows throughout Europe and Australia. The trio performed a complex hybrid of R&B, drum and bass, dub, funk, and soul music, buttressed by sampling and electronic percussion. In 1998, they released their eponymously titled debut album Jungle Funk, which consisted of a recording of their live performance in Austria.
Jungle Funk is the eponymously titled debut album of Jungle Funk, released in 1998 by ESC Records. Capturing a live collaboration between musicians Will Calhoun, Vinx de Jon Parette and Doug Wimbish, the material comprising the album was recorded over the course of two days in April 1998 at Conrad Sohm, Austria. It combined the hard funk of Living Colour with the more technology based sampling approach of Tackhead.
Trippy Notes for Bass is the first solo album by bassist Doug Wimbish, released on August 24, 1999 by On-U Sound Records. On March 3, 2008, the album was re-issued as Trippy Notes for Bass & Remixes on Dude Records.
The following is a list of albums released by now-defunct hip-hop record label Sugar Hill Records.
The Sugar Hill Records Story is a 1997 compilation album compiling singles released by the Sugar Hill Records label. It was released by Rhino Records who had purchased the North American rights to the labels catalogue in 1995. On its release, it received positive reviews from Vibe, Spin and AllMusic.