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Little Axe | |
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Bernard Alexander |
| Also known as | Skip McDonald |
| Born | September 1949 (age 74) Dayton, Ohio, United States |
| Genres | |
| Occupation(s) | Musician Songwriter Record producer Musical string arranger |
| Instrument(s) | Vocals, guitar |
| Years active | 1973–present |
| Labels | Sugar Hill, Wired, Real World, Fat Possum, Okeh |
Skip McDonald (born Bernard Alexander, September 1949) [3] [4] is an American musician who also performs under the stage name Little Axe.
Grounded in blues music learned from his father, a steel worker who played blues guitar at weekends, [4] McDonald spent his early days playing jazz, doo-wop, and gospel, and eventually relocated to New York City as a teenager with his band of friends, called The Entertainers. [2] [3]
McDonald formed the group Wood Brass & Steel in 1973 with bass guitarist Doug Wimbish and drummer Harold Sargent. The group recorded two albums before their 1979 breakup. [3] He then became part of the house band for Sugarhill Records and appeared as a session player on many early rap recordings, including "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five.
After leaving Sugarhill, McDonald, Wimbish, and drummer Keith LeBlanc began working with Adrian Sherwood, and eventually formed the trio into the industrial/dub group Tackhead, initially fronted by Gary Clail and later Bernard Fowler. [3] McDonald also collaborated with Sherwood on other projects, including albums by African Head Charge and Mark Stewart. [2]
In the 1990s, McDonald assumed the moniker "Little Axe" and began moving from hip hop to a form of blues that drew from an array of musical influences, including dub, R&B, gospel, and jazz. [2] He has been working steadily as a studio musician, recording both his own blues albums, and continuing to appear as a guest act on other artists' albums. His most recent albums have been released on Real World Records. Alan Glen is often featured on harmonica on these albums. [3]
In 2009, he collaborated with Mauritanian musician Daby Touré to produce an album, Call My Name.
As of 2016, he still tours and gigs regularly, has a loyal following and is in regular demand for session work as a guitarist.
With Melba Moore
With Sinéad O'Connor
With Brenda K. Starr
With Candi Staton
With Donna Summer
Dub Syndicate is a dub band, formed by Adrian Sherwood, which became a showcase for Adrian Sherwood's collaboration with Lincoln "Style" Scott, former drummer with the Roots Radics, Suns of Arqa and Creation Rebel.
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.
Douglas Arthur Wimbish 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, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, The Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger, Depeche Mode, James Brown, Annie Lennox, Tarja Turunen, and Barrington Levy.
Adrian Maxwell Sherwood is an English record producer specialising in the genre of dub music. He has created a distinctive production style based on the application of dub effects and dub mixing techniques to other forms of electronic dance music and popular music outside of the genre. He has worked extensively with a variety of reggae artists as well as the musicians Keith LeBlanc, Doug Wimbish and Skip McDonald. Sherwood has remixed tracks by Coldcut, Depeche Mode, The Woodentops, Primal Scream, Pop Will Eat Itself, Sinéad O'Connor, and Skinny Puppy. In his role as a record producer he has worked with a variety of record labels; however, his best-known label is On-U Sound Records which he founded in 1979. Sherwood has been a member of the band Tackhead. He considers himself tone deaf, and focuses on making sounds and noises rather than melody.
Jarret Lloyd Vincent, better known by one of his stage aliases Bim Sherman, was a Jamaican musician and singer-songwriter.
Keith LeBlanc was an American drummer and record producer who was a member of the bands Little Axe and Tackhead.
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.
Tackhead Tape Time is the debut album of Tackhead, released in 1987 through Nettwerk.
Strange Things is the third album by Tackhead, released in 1990 through SBK Records.
"What's My Mission Now?" is a single by the American industrial hip-hop group Tackhead, released in October 1985 on On-U Sound. Scott Becker of Option called it "Sherwood as his outrageous best: wild stereo effects, a crucial beat, a bit of dubbing-it-up, found vocals, odd sounds, the works."
"Reality" is a single by the industrial hip-hop group Tackhead, released in January 1988 on On-U Sound Records.
"Ticking Time Bomb" is a single by the industrial hip-hop group Tackhead, released in March 1989 on World Records.
Power Inc. Volume 1 is a compilation album by the American industrial hip-hop group Tackhead. It was released in 1994 on Blanc Records.
Tackhead Sound Crash is a remix album by the industrial hip-hop group Tackhead. It was released on November 13, 2006 on Beat and On-U Sound 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.
If You Want Loyalty Buy a Dog is the seventh album by Little Axe, released on October 24, 2011 by On-U Sound. It was the first album Skip McDonald produced without the aid of fellow Tackhead members Keith LeBlanc and Doug Wimbish.
The English Disease is the only album by the Barmy Army, a moniker for British producer Adrian Sherwood. Released in October 1989 through the musician's label On-U Sound Records, it features bassist Doug Wimbish and guitarist Skip McDonald from Tackhead, whom Barmy Army are sometimes described as an alias of, and drummer Style Scott among other musicians and contributors.
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