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Prakash John | |
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| Born | 1 August 1947 Mumbai, India |
| Origin | Toronto, Canada |
| Genres | |
| Instrument | Bass guitar |
| Years active | 1968–present |
Prakash John is an Indian-Canadian rock and rhythm & blues bassist. [1] He is known as one of the originators of the 'Toronto sound'.
John was born in Mumbai, India, in 1947. At age four, he was enrolled at the prestigious Protestant Cathedral and John Connon School, where he learned to play the piano and violin, and was exposed to Western and classical music, particularly that of J.S. Bach, W. A. Mozart, and Charles Wesley. In 1960, he and his family moved to Toronto, where he discovered WUFO 1080, an AM radio station in Buffalo, New York and, for the first time, heard American music and rhythm and blues. Inspired by Chuck Rainey, Motown legend James Jamerson, and Sly and the Family Stone bassist Larry Graham, John taught himself to play bass guitar. [2]
In 1965, John went to a Wilson Pickett concert and was inspired to become a professional musician—not so much by Pickett's performance, but by that of the opening act, The Rogues (aka The Five Rogues). At his school, he formed his first R&B group, The Trikq, which served as the rhythm section for another band, George Olliver & The Soul Children. He became good enough that, in 1970, he was scouted, and asked to audition, for a band called Mandala—which was the new name of, incredibly, The Rogues. Mandala was about to break up, but some of its members formed a new band, Bush, which consisted of guitarist Domenic Troiano, singer Roy Kenner, keyboardist Hugh Sullivan, John, and the Finnish-Canadian drummer Pentti Glan (aka 'Whitey'). It was Glan who would have the most influence on John, who said "He was a tremendous drummer and had tremendous sense of groove and an unusual grasp of funk for that time, the New Orleans funk. Because I liked his style of playing and I shaped mine to suit that, it was like magic when we played." Bush moved to Los Angeles, recorded the album Bush, [3] [4] [5] toured with Steppenwolf, and played with, among others, John Mayall and Three Dog Night. [6] [7] Bush then broke up—Troiano and Kenner left to join James Gang and Glan went to work on the solo album of Steppenwolf frontman John Kay. [8]
While in Los Angeles, John also taught guitar to Nick St. Nicholas (Steppenwolf), Kenny Gradney (Delaney & Bonnie and Little Feat), and Rosemary Butler (Birtha). [9]
At that time, John declined several prestigious recording offers (Van Morrison's album Moondance [10] ) He was invited, by Bobby Whitlock, to join Derek & the Dominos, and he was asked, by Rick Derringer and Edgar Winter, to join White Trash, with Winter asking three times. Instead, he spent some time as a counselor at a camp for handicapped children, where his mother was a teacher. [11]
When he was with George Olliver & The Soul Children, the band was in London, Ontario, where John's playing caught the attention of George Clinton, who was there with his band Parliament. Parliament's bass player couldn't get over the border and Clinton asked John to step in. At the end of the summer of 1971, Clinton brought him to Detroit, where they recorded America Eats Its Young , by Clinton's band Funkadelic. Clinton would have John back in 1974, to record the Parliament album Chocolate City . [12]
In 1973, Glan called and asked if he'd like a ten-day job recording an album with Lou Reed. They recorded the album Sally Can't Dance , and spent the next four years touring and recording with Reed. Through Reed, John met the men who would become two of his other musical heroes, Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner, whom he credits for the quality of Reed's live albums, Rock 'n' Roll Animal and Lou Reed Live —he would play on both of their 1978 albums. [13] [14] [15]
In 1975, Glan and John were asked to work (along with Hunter and Wagner) on an album that Alice Cooper was recording in Toronto. That album became Cooper's legendary Welcome to My Nightmare . They went on tour in support of it, and Glan and John would spend the next six years with Cooper, touring and recording his albums Lace and Whiskey and DaDa .
In 1979, John founded his second R&B band, The Lincolns, which plays versions of R&B classics and some original tunes, mainly in clubs across Canada. In 1981, they released the album Take One; they released their second album, Funky Funky Funky in 1996. In the 1980s, the band opened for Robert Palmer, and was chosen to play at Wayne Gretzky's 1988 wedding. [16] At a 2002 Toronto concert, Prince joined them on stage. [17] In 2016, they toured Europe with a Tina Turner tribute show. [18] As of 2021, John's son Jordan leads the band, which is considered one of North America's premiere R&B bands. [19] [20]
As a solo artist, John has played and/or recorded with James Brown, Rory Block, Paul Shaffer, Pinetop Perkins, Jr. Wells, Mike Bloomfield, Brenda Russell, Dr. John, American Flyer, Paul Dean and Murray McLauchlan, among others.
In 1998, John appeared in the film Blues Brothers 2000 (and played on the soundtrack). In 2016, he was one of the stars of Sunnyvale Shoals, a 19-episode TV series about the roots of Soul and R&B. [21] Also in 2016, he appeared on the 5 September Trailer Park Boys podcast Park After Dark. [22]
John lives with his wife in the Toronto suburb of Mississauga; they have two sons. In 2019, he was given a stone on the Mississauga Music Walk of Fame. [23]
The Guess Who is a Canadian rock band formed in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1965. The band found their greatest success in the late 1960s and early 1970s, under the leadership of singer/keyboardist Burton Cummings and guitarist Randy Bachman, with hit songs including "American Woman", "These Eyes", and "No Time".
Welcome to My Nightmare is the debut solo studio album by American rock musician Alice Cooper, released on February 28, 1975 by Atlantic Records. A concept album, its songs played in sequence form a journey through the nightmares of a child named Steven. The album inspired the Alice Cooper: The Nightmare TV special, a worldwide concert tour in 1975, and his Welcome to My Nightmare concert film in 1976. The tour was one of the most over-the-top excursions of that era. Most of Lou Reed's band joined Cooper for this record. Welcome to My Nightmare is his only album under the Atlantic Records label in North America; internationally, it was released on the ABC subsidiary Anchor Records.
Domenic Michele Antonio Troiano was an Italian–Canadian guitarist and songwriter, best known as a member of Mandala, Bush, James Gang, and The Guess Who. He also recorded music for film and television, often made guest appearances on other musicians' albums, and worked as a producer.
Bush was an early 1970s Canadian rock band. It evolved from the club act Mandala, which had a minor Canadian hit with the song "Love-Itis".
Sally Can't Dance is the fourth solo studio album by American rock musician Lou Reed, released in September 1974 by RCA Records. Steve Katz and Reed produced the album. It remains Reed's highest-charting album in the United States, having peaked at #10 during a 14-week stay on the Billboard 200 album chart in October 1974. It is also the first solo Lou Reed album not to feature any songs originally recorded by Reed's earlier band, the Velvet Underground, as well as the first of Reed's solo studio albums to be recorded in the United States. The album art was designed by noted Fillmore and Broadway poster artist David Edward Byrd and was one of the few album covers he ever designed.
Richard Allen Wagner was an American rock guitarist, songwriter and author best known for his work with Alice Cooper, Lou Reed, and Kiss. He also fronted his own Michigan-based bands, the Frost and the Bossmen.
Rock 'n' Roll Animal is a live album by American musician Lou Reed, released in February 1974 by RCA Records. In its original form, it features five songs, four of which were initially recorded by The Velvet Underground. Reed's band included Pentti Glan (drums), Prakash John (bass), Ray Colcord (keyboards), and Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter (guitars).
Lou Reed Live is a live album by Lou Reed, released in 1975. It was recorded at the same concert as Rock 'n' Roll Animal ; on December 21, 1973, at Howard Stein's Academy of Music in New York. It features three songs from Transformer, one song from The Velvet Underground & Nico and two songs from Berlin. Between this album and the remastered Rock 'n' Roll Animal, the entire show has been released, albeit in a different order than the original concert setlist.
Welcome to My Nightmare is a 1975 concert film of Alice Cooper's show of the same name. It was produced, directed and choreographed by David Winters. The film accompanied the album, the stage show by the same name and the TV special Alice Cooper: The Nightmare, the first ever rock music video album, starring Cooper and Vincent Price in person. Though it failed at the box office, it later became a midnight movie favorite and a cult classic.
Mandala was a Canadian R&B and soul band from the 1960s. The band was formed in 1965 in Toronto, Ontario as The Rogues and changed their name prior to their first Canadian Top 40 hit "Opportunity".
"Only Women Bleed" is a song by American rock singer Alice Cooper, released on his debut solo studio album Welcome to My Nightmare (1975). It was written by Cooper and Dick Wagner and was the second single from the album to be released.
Roy Douglas Kenner is a Canadian singer and songwriter, most notable as the lead vocalist of Mandala in the late 1960s and as the lead vocalist of the James Gang during 1972–1974.
Power in the Music is the fourteenth studio album by the Canadian rock band The Guess Who. The album was released in 1975 by RCA Records. It is the last album to feature lead singer Burton Cummings, before he left The Guess Who in 1975 to pursue a solo career.
Stephen John Hunter is an American guitarist, primarily a session player. He has worked with Lou Reed and Alice Cooper, acquiring the moniker "The Deacon". Hunter first played with Mitch Ryder's Detroit, beginning a long association with record producer Bob Ezrin who has said Steve Hunter has contributed so much to rock music in general that he truly deserves the designation of "Guitar Hero". Steve Hunter has played some of the greatest riffs in rock history - the first solo in Aerosmith's "Train Kept A Rollin'", the acoustic intro on Peter Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill" and he wrote the intro interlude on Lou Reed's live version of "Sweet Jane" on Reed's first gold record.
Michael Fonfara was a Canadian keyboard player who was most notable for his work as a member of The Electric Flag and Rhinoceros in the 1960s, Rough Trade and Lou Reed's backing band in the 1970s and The Downchild Blues Band, from 1990 to the present. He studied classical piano at The Royal Conservatory of Music. He is a multiple Maple Blues Award winner as Piano/Keyboardist of the year and a Juno Award winner with the Downchild Blues Band. His distinguished musical career was so honoured by the Maple Blues Awards as early as 2000 and a Juno Award in 2014.
Frederick Lawrence Mandel is a Canadian session musician, keyboard player and guitarist.
"Welcome to My Nightmare" is the title track to Alice Cooper's eighth studio album. The song is written by Cooper, Dick Wagner and Bob Ezrin. It peaked at 45 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song itself mixes elements from disco, jazz, hard rock, and keeps a "heavy-yet-funky beat". Cooper would later perform the song on The Muppet Show. The tune was placed tenth on a list AOL Radio made of the "10 Best Halloween Songs".
Pentti "Whitey" Glan was a Finnish-Canadian rock drummer, best known for his work with Alice Cooper and Lou Reed.
Shawne Jackson is a Canadian singer, songwriter and actress.
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