From whole-note hoedowns to fusion freak-outs, the bass legend talks about his genre-jumping career cutting tracks for James Taylor, Billy Cobham, Carole King, Clint Black, Phil Collins, Warren Zevon, and many others.
Leland Sklar is sitting in his hotel room in Denver, Colorado, watching Law & Order. It’s a creature comfort he indulges in frequently while on the road. “The one good thing about it is, any time day or night, anywhere I go, I can always find it,” he admits. Similarly, one could argue that Sklar’s bass playing is also a universal creature comfort. He’s played with so many artists and recorded so many hits it’s hard to go anywhere there’s music, day or night, without hearing him.
Whether it’s his groundbreaking session work with singer/songwriters like James Taylor, Jackson Browne, and Rita Coolidge in the ’70s, or his contributions to the slick, polished productions of pop icons Phil Collins, Reba McEntire, and Warren Zevon in the ’80s and ’90s, or his forays into the country canon via artists like Clint Black, Vince Gill, and Faith Hill, Sklar’s bass playing has literally dominated the airwaves for five decades. It’s hard to condense his track record, which includes more than 2,500 recordings, but a smattering of Sklar-supported songs one might hear on the radio during any given day includes “You’ve Got a Friend” by James Taylor, “I Am Woman” by Helen Reddy, “Running on Empty” by Jackson Browne, “It’s Raining Men” by the Weather Girls, and “Another Day in Paradise” by Phil Collins.
But it doesn’t stop there. Sklar isn’t simply a fixture in popular music. He also has an uncanny knack for effortlessly transcending genres. From his performance on Billy Cobhams’s seminal jazz-fusion album Spectrum in 1973 to sessions with Toto guitar phenom Steve Lukather over the past three decades to film soundtracks like Doctor Detroit (1983), The Prince of Egypt (1998), and Legally Blonde (2001), it becomes evident that Sklar’s playing is free of stylistic constraints. And if you thought his skill set was any less desirable outside the States, forget it. He seems to transcend cultures, too. He just finished cutting a 33-track album with French artists Eddy Mitchell and Johnny Hallyday (who passed away after the sessions), and has recorded and/or continues to record extensively with artists from around the globe, including Marta Sánchez (Spain), Garou (Canada), and Vasco Rossi (Italy).
“I really feel quite blessed to still be as busy as I am,” Sklar, who’s 70, confesses. “I still get completely jacked when the phone rings or an e-mail comes in. I just finished a Japanese hard-rock project with Mari Hamada and was in the studio for a few days with Judith Owen working on material for her next album. Everything is still vital and fun. That, to me, is the essence of the whole thing. I still love this as much as the first day I did it. I still have that giddiness when someone calls and asks me if I’m available to do something.”
Sklar recently came off a “fabulous run” with Phil Collins in the U.K., where he played in front of 70,000 people in Hyde Park and 45,000 people in Dublin. He’ll be back in the U.K. with Collins in November at the Royal Albert Hall in London. PG caught up with him over the summer in Denver, while on the road with singer/pianist Judith Owen in support of her 2016 release Somebody’s Child. It’s a record that epitomizes his playing style as he complements piano parts and enhances vocal melodies all while establishing killer, seemingly simple, grooves. He seemed delighted to take a break from Law & Order to talk about the foundation of his prolific career and playing style, the “Old Frankenstein” bass he’s used to cut those 2,500-plus recordings, and his predilection for playing whole notes.
How’s the Judith Owen tour going?
It’s great. She’s a unique artist to work with. Her style of writing really harkens back, for me, to my early days with James Taylor and Jackson Browne. She’s a beautiful writer from the standpoint of storytelling and is very succinct in the way she expresses her stories. They are incredibly relatable. She’s also a gifted pianist and singer. There’s a wide breadth of stylistic things and I never find it dull. It’s fun to get your teeth into musically. And the instrumentation we use on the tour is great because she’s playing piano, I’m playing bass, Pedro Segundo is playing percussion, Gabriella Swallow plays cello, and Lizzie Ball plays violin, so it’s a unique musical lineup that really complements each other well.
James Taylor’s manager insisted his studio bands’ names appeared on the back of Mudslide Slim and the Blue Horizon. “So, when this new movement came along of singer/songwriters, people could look at James’ record, which became the benchmark, and they would see our names,” says Sklar. “The next thing you know, I’m getting calls to do studio work.”
How did you develop your playing style?
Working with James Taylor really required a particular approach, musically. He’s probably one of the most underrated guitar players ever. He plays in such a comprehensive style—with his constant, moving thumb bass going through all his songs. It was really a challenge for me to sit there and think, “What the hell am I going to do? How do I justify being here when he’s already got it covered?” And so, I immersed myself and really tried to find ways of lyrically weaving things together.
Can you articulate how you weave things together?
In one moment, you’re aping them [singer/songwriters] and joining in with what they’re doing, but then you must be able to step away from it and find alternative patterns that keep the thing moving. I’ve always tried to justify my being there without becoming intrusive. I find it a great challenge to listen to a song and figure out, “What does this ultimately need? Or not need?”
Does it relate to the age-old “less is more” adage?
There’s no chops in playing a whole note. If that’s what it demands, then I’m quite happy. I remember doing a dissertation on a whole note once that lasted about five minutes, and these guys in the room, I think it was at the Bass Centre in L.A., asked, didn’t I find it boring to play simply on a song? And I said, “Absolutely not. Sometimes the simple ones are the absolute hardest to play.” It was an enlightening evening for all of us.
Did you have any formal education, musically?
I started as a classical pianist when I was 4. I studied until I was 12. I was the proverbial prodigy kid. When I was 7, I won an award from the Hollywood Bowl Society for outstanding young pianist in Los Angeles.
Lee Sklar began playing bass in junior high school. More than a half-century later, he is one of the instrument’s preeminent figures, with more than 2,500 recordings to his credit. Here, he plays one of his Warwick axes. Photo by Steve Kalinsky
What about on bass?
When I went to junior high school, I walked in there like a cocky little shit and said, “Your piano player is here.” The teacher, Ted Lynn, looked at me and said, “We’ve got 50 kids who play piano; we need a string bass player,” and he pulled an old blonde Kay upright out of the back room and handed it to me. I knew nothing about it, but I put that bass against me, plucked a note, felt the vibration run through and said, “sold!” He took me aside and gave me some rudimentary lessons on how to get around on the instrument. I just fell in love with it and the piano fell by the wayside completely. I was thrilled to find something new that let me sit in the background.
How did your recording career first take off?
The thing I was really blessed with was when we did James’ third album, Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon, Peter Asher [Taylor’s manager] insisted that our names appear on the back of the record as the musicians—Russ Kunkel (drums), Danny Kortchmar (guitar), and Carole King was the piano player [along with keyboardist Craig Doerge, they all became independently known as the Section]. So, when this new movement came along of singer/songwriters, people could look at James’ record, which became the benchmark, and they would see our names. The next thing you know, I’m getting calls to do studio work.
Had you much recording experience at that point?
I’d done some demos, but I never recorded an album before. Suddenly, we were thrown into the fire of really having to craft sounds, understand what the studio scene was like, and understand how different that was from being in a live band. It really required some serious focus, but I fell in love with it. Once that started, we hit the ground running.
I guess you were kind of following in the footsteps of the Wrecking Crew.
Absolutely. It was the golden age of all this. So many artists were being signed and so much of it sat on our shoulders. Nobody was coming in with charts. They would come in and sit and play piano or guitar and have us create for them. Our contributions were really us, and not just as conduits to an arranger’s charts.
How do you avoid repetition in your playing?
For me, everything really feels fresh no matter what. I really fly by the seat of my pants and try to live in the moment each time. On tour, I never play the same song the same way twice. I always look for other nuances that come with the sound of the hall, the look or vibe of the audience, the placement of the band onstage. So many little things factor in that make you respond differently each time. So, I try to live in that given moment. When I was with James Taylor, I can’t tell you how many times I played “Fire and Rain,” but the thing that was foremost in my mind every time was, “I might’ve played this 5,000 times, but there’s somebody in the audience who is hearing it for the first time.” And that’s who you pay attention to and that’s how you respond.
How are you able to apply what you do to so many different genres so seamlessly?
I’ve been fortunate in that, whatever it is Ido, there seems to be a great common denominator. If I’m working on a reggae record, I can do the few things that create reggae in terms of drop beats and different things like that, but I don’t do them that much differently than I would if I was doing a Vince Gill record down in Nashville or if I was doing some pop record in L.A. The way I approach music seems to take on a general consensus of fitting into all these genres without having to rethink the way I play.
Basses
Old Frankenstein (4-string)
Warwick Star Bass II, fretted & fretless (4-string)
Warwick Masterbuilt Sklar Bass I (4-string)
Dingwall Leland Sklar Signature Model (5-string)
Amps
Euphonic Audio iAMP Doubler II
Euphonic Audio Wizzy-112
Effects
Boss OC-2 Octave
Strings and Picks
GHS Custom Bass Super Steels (.045–.105)
Is there anything you’re not good at?
The only stuff I really suck at, because of some hand and wrist injuries, is slapping and popping. So, if I get a call for a Louis Johnson tribute, I go, “I’m not the cat for that project.” I’ll drop a couple of names of guys who can smoke that down so easily. I don’t throw myself in harm’s way because I don’t want to be embarrassed and I don’t want a project to not be as good as it can be.
What made Billy Cobham’s Spectrum work so well?
What made that record really stand out were the grooves. They needed to be held down while Billy, Tommy [Bolin, guitar] and Jan [Hammer, keyboards] blew on top of it. Every time I go do a clinic, that’s the first thing guys talk about. It’s funny, for something that went by so fast, all these years later, to still have such strong legs. I get guys that want to jam “Quadrant 4” or “Stratus,” and I go, “You’ve got to understand, I played this once in 1973 and you guys have eaten it up and played it in clubs for years now. I have no idea how the song goes or what key it’s in.”
When you went out with Billy and did the 30th anniversary tour, did you have to literally sit down and relearn those songs?
All of it, and man, we just flew by the seat of our pants in the studio. It was literally one or two takes of everything and we were done. So, it’s funny when you get the guys who are uber-geeking all this stuff and they want to play it. Every time I’m around Clint Black he immediately wants to play James Taylor songs and I go, “I haven’t played that song in a long time. You sit home and practice with it while I’m at work doing something else, so I can’t be of much help here.” [Laughs.]
Do you consider yourself lucky?
I always pinch myself—everyday. I just think how lucky I am. I mean, I’ve worked hard and I don’t deny the effort I’ve put into it. But I feel very fortunate, because I know talented players who haven’t had the opportunities open up that I was fortunate enough to have. I never take it for granted. I’m not blasé about this at all. I’m deadly serious every time I take my bass out and sit down to play. I really try to give it my all.
What keeps you inspired?
The thing that’s helped me a great deal is that I’ve been privy to so many assorted styles and genres and artists as compared to somebody who’s in one band their entire career. I join a different band almost weekly when I’m doing studio work. And you owe it to that project to treat it as though it’s your band. I get real excited. I’m very vocal in the studio with ideas and thoughts. I don’t care if they use them, but I feel it’s imperative to do more than just bring a bass and sit there and play. I think about arrangements. My personal thing I always say is, “Everything I do is etched in mud.” I’m not possessive about parts. If somebody comes up to me and says, “That’s a cool idea, but I think we’d rather do this....” I go, “Fine, I’m good with that.” At the end of the day, I’m leaving that project and moving on to another one, but that could be the only day this artist gets to make their mark, so you give them all you’ve got.
Aces of bass Lee Sklar, Jonas Hellborg, and Steve Bailey play a rare summit in Frankfurt, Germany, performing a tune they cowrote called “Jostle.” Sklar is playing one of his signature Warwick models.
The Story of “Old Frankenstein”
Lee Sklar’s main bass was an experiment that’s since been autographed by world-famous celebrities, athletes, and musicians (see photos) and used on 80 to 90 percent of his touring and recording dates. It was put together by John Carruthers at Westwood Music in L.A. in the early ’70s.“This was around the same time Charvel first started,” Sklar recalls. “They were doing all these alder replacement precision bodies. I went out there and ended up hanging about 12 of these bodies by a wire and thumping on them, and one of them had this incredible resonance to it, so I bought it.”
He took that and a ’62 Precision neck to Carruthers. Not being “a Precision guy,” he and Carruthers made a template of a neck from a ’62 Jazz bass that Sklar owned. They then ripped the frets out of the Precision neck and reshaped it into a Jazz neck. “While that was going on, I was walking around the shop and saw all this fret wire, spools of it, hanging on the walls, and I go, ‘What’s this wire?’ And he said, ‘That’s mandolin wire.’ And I said, ‘Let’s try that.’ And he said, ‘That’s not going to work on a bass.’ I said, ‘Let’s try it. If it doesn’t work, I’ll pay you for a re-fret.’ Needless to say, there was no re-fret.”
Dave Borisoff from Hipshot gave them the first prototype set of his Bass Xtender tuning keys and Rob Turner at EMG provided them with his original P-bass pickups. “We got two sets and put them where jazz pickups would sit instead of the P-bass routing. We also flipped the pickups, so the A and E signal would be closer to the bridge. The first time we plugged it in, it was so even-sounding. And we used 18-volt circuitry, so we were able to save that cavity rather than routing another hole.” The bass was completed with a Badass II bridge. “It was an experiment, but as soon as we plugged it in, we were like, ‘Are you kidding?’”
Join PG contributor Tom Butwin as he explores all-new versions of the Framus Hootenanny 12-string and 6-string acoustics—made famous by John Lennon and now available with modern upgrades. From vintage-inspired tone to unique features, these guitars are built to spark creativity.
Neil Young’s ’70s hits are some of the most recognizable radio rock jams of all time. But Neil’s guitar playing continued to grow over the ensuing decades, as he traversed styles from blues to country to electronic to rockabilly and beyond, eventually developing one of the most tonally decadent, fully formed improvisational voices in the entire guitar universe.
Neil Young’s ’70s hits are some of the most recognizable radio rock jams of all time. But Neil’s guitar playing continued to grow over the ensuing decades, as he traversed styles from blues to country to electronic to rockabilly and beyond, eventually developing one of the most tonally decadent, fully formed improvisational voices in the entire guitar universe.
Like any discography that’s been growing over the course of more than half a century, it can be hard to decode Young’s work. And with such an adventurous spirit, it could be easy to make some missteps and miss out on his best guitar works. In this episode, Nick guides Jason through some of his hero’s finest moments.
More news from Neil always seems to be on the horizon, so here’s your chance to catch up.
This episode is sponsored by Gibson.
This Japan-made Guyatone brings back memories of hitchin’ rides around the U.S.
This oddball vintage Guyatone has a streak of Jack Kerouac’s adventurous, thumbing spirit.
The other day, I saw something I hadn’t noticed in quite some time. Driving home from work, I saw an interesting-looking fellow hitchhiking. When I was a kid, “hitchers” seemed much more common, but, then again, the world didn’t seem as dangerous as today. Heck, I can remember hitching to my uncle’s cabin in Bradford, Pennsylvania—home of Zippo lighters—and riding almost 200 miles while I sat in a spare tire in the open bed of a pickup truck! Yes, safety wasn’t a big concern for kids back in the day.
So, as I’m prone to do, I started digging around hitchhiking culture and stories. Surprisingly, there are organized groups that embrace the hitching life, but the practice remains on the fringe in the U.S. Back in the 1950s, writer Jack Kerouac wrote the novel On the Road, which celebrated hitchhiking and exposed readers to the thrill of maverick travel. Heck, even Mike Dugan (the guitarist in all my videos) hitched his way to California in the 1960s. But seeing that fellow on the side of the road also sparked another image in my brain: Yep, it always comes back to guitars.
Let me present to you a guitar that’s ready to go hitching: the Guyatone LG-180T, hailing from 1966. The “thumbs-up” headstock and the big “thumb” on the upper bout always made me think of thumbing a ride, and I bought and sold this guitar so long ago that I had forgotten about it, until I saw that hitchhiking dude. Guyatone was an interesting Japanese company because they were primarily an electronics company, and most of their guitars had their wooden parts produced by other factories. In the case of the LG-180T, the bodies were made by Yamaha in Hamamatsu, Japan. At that time, Yamaha was arguably making the finest Japanese guitars, and the wood on this Guyatone model is outstanding. We don’t often see Guyatone-branded guitars here in the U.S., but a lot of players recognize the early ’60s label Kent—a brand name used by an American importer for Guyatone guitars.
With a bit of imagination, the LG-180T’s “thumbs up” headstock seems to be looking for a roadside ride.
Kent guitars were extremely popular from the early ’60s until around 1966. The U.S. importer B&J fed the American need for electric guitars with several nice Kent models, but when the Guyatone contract ended, so did most of the Kent guitars. After that, Guyatone primarily sold guitars in Japan, so this example is a rare model in the U.S.
“Unless you are a master at guitar setups, this would be a difficult player.”
This headstock is either the ugliest or the coolest of the Guyatone designs. I can’t decide which. I will say, no other Japanese guitar company ever put out anything like this. You have to give the Guyatone designers a thumbs up for trying to stand out in the crowd! Guyatone decided to forgo an adjustable truss rod in this model, opting instead for a light alloy non-adjustable core to reinforce the neck. Speaking of the neck, this instrument features the most odd-feeling neck. It’s very thin but has a deep shoulder (if that makes any sense). Totally strange!
Another strange feature is the bridge, which offers very little adjustment because of the three large saddles, which sort of rock back and forth with the tremolo. It’s a shame because these pickups sound great! They’re very crisp and have plenty of zing, but unless you are a master at guitar set-ups, this would be a difficult player.
This could be why the LG-180T only appeared in the 1966 and 1967 catalogs. After that, it disappeared along with all the other Yamaha-made Guyatone electrics. By 1969, Guyatone had gone bankrupt for the first time, and thus ended guitar production for a few decades. At least we were blessed with some wacky guitar designs we can marvel at while remembering the days when you could play in the back end of an explosive 1973 AMC Gremlin while your mom raced around town. Two thumbs up for surviving our childhoods! PG
There's a lot of musical gold inside the scales.
Intermediate
Intermediate
• Develop a deeper improvisational vocabulary.
• Combine pentatonic scales to create new colors.
• Understand the beauty of diatonic harmony.Improvising over one chord for long stretches of time can be a musician's best friend or worst nightmare. With no harmonic variation, we are left to generate interest through our lines, phrasing, and creativity. When I started learning to improvise, a minor 7 chord and a Dorian mode were the only sounds that I wanted to hear at the time. I found it tremendously helpful to have the harmony stay in one spot while I mined for new ideas to play. Playing over a static chord was crucial in developing my sense of time and phrasing.
The following is the first improvisational device I ever came across. I want to say I got it from a Frank Gambale book. The idea is that there are three minor pentatonic scales "hiding" in any given major scale. If we're in the key of C (C–D–E–F–G–A–B) we can pluck out the D, E, and A minor pentatonic scales. If we frame them over a Dm7 chord, they give us different five-note combinations of the D Dorian mode. In short, we are building minor pentatonic scales off the 2, 3, and 6 of the C major scale.
Viewing this through the lens of D minor (a sibling of C major and the tonal center for this lesson), D minor pentatonic gives us the 1–b3–4–5–b7, E minor pentatonic gives us 2–4–5–6–1, and A minor pentatonic gives us 5–b7–1–2–4. This means you can use your favorite pentatonic licks in three different locations and there are three different sounds we can tap into from the same structure.
If you smashed all of them together, you would get the D Dorian scale (D–E–F–G–A–B–C) with notes in common between the D, E, and A minor pentatonic scales. Ex. 1 uses all three scales, so you can hear the different colors each one creates over the chord.
Ex. 1
Ex. 2 is how I improvise with them, usually weaving in and out using different positional shapes.
Ex. 2
The next idea is one I stole from a guitarist who often came into a music store I worked at. On the surface, it's very easy: Just take two triads (in our example it will be Dm and C) and ping-pong between them. The D minor triad (D–F–A) gives us 1–b3–5, which is very much rooted in the chord, and the C major triad (C–E–G) gives us the b7–9–4, which is much floatier. Also, if you smash these two triads together, you get 1–2–b3–4–5–b7, which is a minor pentatonic scale with an added 2 (or 9). Eric Johnson uses this sound all the time. Ex. 3 is the lick I stole years ago.
Ex. 3
Ex. 4 is how I would improvise with this concept. Many different fingerings work with these, so experiment until you find a layout that's comfortable for your own playing.
Ex. 4
If two triads work, why not seven? This next approach will take all the triads in the key of C (C–Dm–Em–F–G–Am–Bdim) and use them over a Dm7 chord (Ex. 5). Each triad highlights different three-note combinations from the Dorian scale, and all of them sound different. Triads are clear structures that sound strong to our ears, and they can generate nice linear interest when played over one chord. Once again, all of this is 100% inside the scale. Ex. 5 is how each triad sounds over the track, and Ex. 6 is my attempt to improvise with them.
Ex. 5
Ex. 6
If we could find all these possibilities with triads, it's logical to make the structure a little bigger and take a similar approach with 7 chords, or in this case, arpeggios. Naturally, all the diatonic chords will work, but I'll limit this next idea to just Dm7, Fmaj7, Am7, and Cmaj7. I love this approach because as you move further away from the Dm7 shape, each new structure takes out a chord tone and replaces it with an extension. I notice that I usually come up with different lines when I'm thinking about different chord shapes, and this approach is a decent way to facilitate that. Ex. 7 is a good way to get these under your fingers. Just ascend one shape, shift into the next shape on the highest string, then descend and shift to the next on the lowest string.
Ex. 7
Ex. 8 is my improvisation using all four shapes and sounds, but I lean pretty heavily on the Am7.
Ex. 8
This last concept has kept me busy on the fretboard for the last five years or so. Check it out: You can take any idea that works over Dm7 and move the other diatonic chords. The result is six variations of your original lick. In Ex. 9 I play a line that is 4–1–b3–5 over Dm7 and then walk it through the other chords in the key. These notes are still in the key of C, but it sounds drastically different from playing a scale.
Ex. 9
In Ex. 10, I try to think about the shapes from the previous example, but I break up the note order in a random but fun way. The ending line is random but felt good, so I left it in.
Ex. 10
While all these concepts have been presented over a minor chord, you can just as easily apply them to any chord quality, and they work just as well in harmonic or melodic minor. Rewarding sounds are available right inside the harmony, and I am still discovering new ideas through these concepts after many years.
Though the above ideas won't necessarily be appropriate for every style or situation, they will work in quite a few. Developing any approach to the point that it becomes a natural extension of your playing takes considerable work and patience, so just enjoy the process, experiment, and let your ear guide you to the sounds you like. Even over just one chord, there is always something new to find.