Nick Movshon

Last updated
Nick Movshon
Birth nameNicholas Anthony Movshon
Born (1982-03-17) March 17, 1982 (age 41)
Manhattan, New York
Genres R&B, soul, pop, alternative rock
OccupationsMusician, record producer
Instruments
  • Bass
  • drums
  • guitar
  • percussion
  • vocals
Years active1999–present
Labels
Member of
Formerly of Antibalas

Nicholas Anthony Movshon (born March 17, 1982) is a bass guitarist, drummer and songwriter best known for his considerable contributions to the New York funk and soul revival. A frequent contributor to the recorded output of Brooklyn-based labels Daptone Records and Truth & Soul, he has spent the past two decades playing with Charles Bradley, Lee Fields, and Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, and as a member of groups including Antibalas, Menahan Street Band, and El Michels Affair. He is also a founding member of The Arcs and has toured with The Black Keys.

Contents

A prolific session musician, he often works with producers Mark Ronson (Amy Winehouse; "Valerie," "Back to Black"), Dan Auerbach (Lana Del Rey, Yola), and Leon Michels (Aloe Blacc; "I Need a Dollar"). He can be heard playing on tracks like Bruno Mars' "Locked Out of Heaven". [1]

History

Movshon began his career as a teenager playing in the band The Mighty Imperials with longtime collaborators Leon Michels, Homer Steinweiss, and Thomas Brenneck. [2] The band released music on Desco Records, a predecessor of seminal soul labels Daptone and Soul Fire, and soon was working as songwriters and sessions musicians for the latter. He joined Brooklyn Afrobeat ensemble Antibalas in the early 2000s and was soon a member of Michels' El Michels Affair and Brenneck's Menahan Street Band. Among other soul and funk bands affiliated with Truth & Soul Records and Daptone Records, Movshon is also a longtime member of Lee Field & The Expressions and has played with Charles Bradley and Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings.

While sitting in with The Dap-Kings in the 2000s, Movshon got to know Mark Ronson who was producing Amy Winehouse's record Back to Black with the group. He played bass on much of the record and would go on play on many other Mark Ronson productions since, often forming a rhythm section with Steinweiss. [2] In 2010, Movshon and Michels toured with The Black Keys. A few years later, they joined Dan Auerbach along with Steinweiss and Richard Swift to form The Arcs; The Arcs released their album Yours, Dreamily, in 2015. Over the past two decades, Movshon has also played with artists like Brooklyn art-rockers TV on the Radio and hip-hop group The Wu Tang Clan.

In 2014, Movshon built the Long Island City recording studio The Diamond Mine with Brenneck, Michels, and Steinweiss. [3]

The bass he is mostly known for using is a vintage Gibson Ripper.

Movshon lives in New York City.

Discography

With The Mighty Imperials

With Antibalas

With El Michels Affair

With Menahan Street Band

With Bronx River Parkway

With Lee Field & The Expressions

With Mark Ronson & the Business Intl.

With Charles Bradley (as part of the Menahan Street Band)

With The Fabulous Three

With The Arcs

With The Olympians

Other credits

Selected credits. Bass guitar credit unless otherwise noted.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Antibalas</span> American afrobeat band

Antibalas is an American, Brooklyn-based afrobeat band founded in 1998 by Martín Perna. Initially inspired by Fela Kuti's Africa 70 band and Eddie Palmieri's Harlem River Drive Orchestra, the music generally follows the musical architecture and language of afrobeat and incorporates elements of jazz, funk, dub, improvised music, and traditional drumming from Cuba and West Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daptone Records</span> Record label

Daptone Records is a funk and soul independent record label based in Brooklyn, New York. Best known as the home of Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings and Charles Bradley, the label boasts a roster which includes Menahan Street Band, The Budos Band, The Sugarman 3, and Antibalas, and runs the recording studio Daptone's House of Soul.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings</span> American funk/soul band

Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings were an American funk and soul band signed to Daptone Records. They were part of a revival movement of mid-1960s to mid-1970s style funk and soul music. They released their debut album Dap Dippin' in 2002, the first of seven studio albums. Their 2014 album Give the People What They Want was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best R&B Album. Following Sharon Jones' death in 2016, the band released the posthumous album Soul of a Woman in 2017 and a compilation of cover songs in 2020.

Truth & Soul was a record label and production team based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It was formed in 2004 by Leon Michels and Jeff Silverman with Philippe Lehman. The label was best known for their releases with Lee Fields & The Expressions and other New York retro-soul / funk groups. As a production house and recording studio, Truth & Soul worked with artists like Aloe Blacc and Adele. In 2016, Truth & Soul's catalog was acquired by The Orchard, and was succeeded by Big Crown Records and Mighty Eye Records.

The Budos Band is an American instrumental band from Staten Island, New York, formed in 2005. AllMusic describes the group as a "doom rock Afro-soul big band with a '70s touch" that joins "musical universes from trippy psychedelia and Afro-funk to '70s hard rock and late-'60s soul." They have described themselves as "70's Psychedelic Instrumental Music," and "Afro-soul inspired by Ethiopian music with a soul undercurrent" and "sprinkled a little bit of sweet 60's stuff on top." One reviewer described the band as “sounding as if Quentin Tarantino was the music supervisor for a Bond film". Their more recent albums have incorporated sounds from 1970s jazz, funk, Afro-Beat, underground rock, and proto-metal. They have been signed to Daptone Records throughout their career.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Menahan Street Band</span> American instrumental band

Menahan Street Band is a Brooklyn, New York–based instrumental band formed in 2007, that plays funk and soul music. The band features musicians from Antibalas, El Michels Affair, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings and the Budos Band. The group was founded by Thomas Brenneck while living in an apartment on Menahan Street in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bushwick. Their debut album, Make the Road by Walking, was released in 2008 on Dunham, a sublabel of Daptone Records and was followed by The Crossing in 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Victor Axelrod</span> Musical artist

Victor Axelrod is an American musician, producer, and audio engineer from Brooklyn, New York. Since the mid-1990s, he has worked primarily in the genres of reggae, Afrobeat and soul, recording and producing under his own name and using the alias Ticklah.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bosco Mann</span> American songwriter

Gabriel Roth, also known as Bosco Mann among other aliases, is an American record producer, musician, and co-founder of Daptone Records. He is best known as the bandleader, bass player, primary songwriter, and producer of Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings. A prolific recording engineer, he runs Daptone Studios in Brooklyn and Penrose Studios in Riverside, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Arcs</span> American garage rock band

The Arcs are an American garage rock band formed by Dan Auerbach, the guitarist and vocalist of the Black Keys. The band consists of Auerbach, Leon Michels, Nick Movshon, Homer Steinweiss, and formerly Richard Swift, who died in 2018. They released their debut album Yours, Dreamily, in 2015. Their second album, Electrophonic Chronic, was released in January 2023.

<i>Secret in the Dark</i> 2015 studio album by Monika

Secret in the Dark is a studio album by Monika Christodoulou, released under the performing name Monika. It was released in Europe and the United States on October 2, 2015 on the Other Music Recording Co. label.

<i>Changes</i> (Charles Bradley album) 2016 studio album by Charles Bradley

Changes is the third album released by American funk/soul singer Charles Bradley, released on April 1, 2016 on Daptone Records. The title track on the album is a cover of the Black Sabbath song of the same name and was first released as a Record Store Day Black Friday single in 2013.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Brenneck</span> American guitarist and producer

Thomas "Tommy" Brenneck is an American guitarist, record producer, and engineer, best known as the leader of the Menahan Street Band and member of The Budos Band, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, and El Michels Affair. He is the founder of Dunham Records, a subsidiary of seminal retro-soul label Daptone Records, and was the producer of soul singer Charles Bradley. As a producer session musician, he frequently works with Daptone and Big Crown Records artists.

Homer Steinweiss is an American drummer, songwriter, and producer known as a prominent drummer in the New York soul revival scene. He is a founding member and drummer of groups including Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, Lee Fields & The Expressions, Hardly Knew Ya, El Michels Affair, and Dan Auerbach's The Arcs, among many others. He leads the Brooklyn folk soul band Holy Hive with Paul Spring. A popular session musician as part of The Dap-Kings and in his own right, he is perhaps best known for his work with Mark Ronson and Amy Winehouse, with whom he recorded the 2006 album Back to Black.

El Michels Affair is an American cinematic soul group led by musician and producer Leon Michels. Based in New York, the group is noted for its wide-ranging influences, analog production approach, and hip hop collaborations. The group released its debut album Sounding Out the City in 2005. After touring behind Raekwon and other Wu-Tang Clan members, the group recorded the popular cover album Enter the 37th Chamber in 2009. After releasing other tribute albums in the following decade, El Michels Affair returned with the original albums Adult Themes in 2020 and Yeti Season in 2021. Since then, the group has released collaborative projects with Freddie Gibbs & Madlib, Liam Bailey, and Black Thought, including 2023's Glorious Game.

Leon Marcus Michels is an American music producer, record executive, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist best known as the leader of the eclectic soul project El Michels Affair and co-founder of Truth & Soul Records and Big Crown Records. He is a founding member of soul and funk bands Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, Menahan Street Band, and Lee Fields & The Expressions, and has played with Charles Bradley as well as Wu-Tang Clan. A frequent collaborator of Dan Auerbach, Michels was a touring member of The Black Keys and co-founded The Arcs. As a producer, Michels has produced records for artists such as Lee Fields, Norah Jones, Chicano Batman, Nicole Wray, and Hanni El Khatib.

Retro soul, sometimes written as retro-soul, is a post-modern and contemporary popular music genre that emerged years after the golden era of soul music. In style of singing, arrangement and recording techniques, this music attempts to offer new music in the tradition of soul music from the United States from the 1950s to the 1970s. This differs from soul music, Contemporary R&B and neo soul as it is intentionally produced in a vintage recording sound and style years after the original era.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Binky Griptite</span> American musician and DJ

Franklin Stribling, professionally known as Binky Griptite, is an American guitarist, record producer, and radio DJ. He is best known as a founding member and guitarist of Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, Soul Providers, and Antibalas, among other Daptone Records-related projects. From 2017 to 2021, he hosted the weekly radio program The Boogie Down on WFUV.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dave Guy</span> American trumpet player (born 1978)

David Anthony Guy is an American trumpet player and member of The Dap-Kings. Over his more than two decade career, he has been part of the groups Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, Menahan Street Band, The Budos Band, and Lee Fields & The Expressions, among others. Since 2014, he has played with The Roots on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. A prolific touring and session musician, he often works with producer Mark Ronson and can be heard playing on tracks including "Valerie" and "Uptown Funk."

<i>The Crossing</i> (Menahan Street Band album) 2012 studio album by Menahan Street Band

The Crossing is the second full-length studio album by American rhythm and blues group Menahan Street Band. It has received positive reviews from critics.

<i>The Exciting Sounds of Menahan Street Band</i> 2021 studio album by Menahan Street Band

The Exciting Sounds of Menahan Street Band is the third full-length studio album by American rhythm and blues group Menahan Street Band.

References

  1. Unorthodox Jukebox (CD liner). Bruno Mars. Atlantic Records. 533064-2.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  2. 1 2 Madora, Ryan (2017-10-20). "Bass Players To Know: Nick Movshon". No Treble. Retrieved 2021-03-10.
  3. "The Diamond Mine Recording Studio" (PDF). The Diamond Mine. Retrieved March 7, 2021.