Bass great Tony Levin on Peter Gabriel, Paul Simon and King Crimson
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You can hear it in the joyful bounce of Paul Simon’s “Late in the Evening” and the prayerful cadence of Peter Gabriel’s “Don’t Give Up”. It winds its way through the knotty rhythms of King Crimson and holds up the bottom end of songs by John Lennon, Pink Floyd and Alice Cooper.
Tony Levin’s bass guitar has served as a foundation, propellant or melodic counterbalance to some of the most innovative, influential and popular music of the past 50 years. But when I visit the musician at home in Kingston, in New York State’s Hudson Valley, he is focused on the present. Later this month, he will release a solo album, Bringing it Down to the Bass.
Levin built the new album around bass parts and posed himself the same question for each track: “Who’s the drummer who would best envision this piece and take it to a better place?” The result is that he is joined by Manu Katché and Jerry Marotta from Peter Gabriel’s bands, former Sting drummer Vinnie Colaiuta and session supremo Steve Gadd, among others.
Also this month, Levin will embark on a tour with Beat, a new supergroup playing 1980s material by pioneering progressive rockers King Crimson and featuring the stellar line-up of virtuoso guitarists Adrian Belew and Steve Vai and highly regarded Tool drummer Danny Carey. They will play music from Discipline (1981), Beat (1982) and Three of a Perfect Pair (1984), an era when Crimson consisted of leader Robert Fripp, Belew, Levin and drummer Bill Bruford.
Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service.
You can hear it in the joyful bounce of Paul Simon’s “Late in the Evening” and the prayerful cadence of Peter Gabriel’s “Don’t Give Up”. It winds its way through the knotty rhythms of King Crimson and holds up the bottom end of songs by John Lennon, Pink Floyd and Alice Cooper.
Tony Levin’s bass guitar has served as a foundation, propellant or melodic counterbalance to some of the most innovative, influential and popular music of the past 50 years. But when I visit the musician at home in Kingston, in New York State’s Hudson Valley, he is focused on the present. Later this month, he will release a solo album, Bringing it Down to the Bass.
Levin built the new album around bass parts and posed himself the same question for each track: “Who’s the drummer who would best envision this piece and take it to a better place?” The result is that he is joined by Manu Katché and Jerry Marotta from Peter Gabriel’s bands, former Sting drummer Vinnie Colaiuta and session supremo Steve Gadd, among others.
Also this month, Levin will embark on a tour with Beat, a new supergroup playing 1980s material by pioneering progressive rockers King Crimson and featuring the stellar line-up of virtuoso guitarists Adrian Belew and Steve Vai and highly regarded Tool drummer Danny Carey. They will play music from Discipline (1981), Beat (1982) and Three of a Perfect Pair (1984), an era when Crimson consisted of leader Robert Fripp, Belew, Levin and drummer Bill Bruford.
Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service.
Working on Lou Reed’s Berlin (1973) and Alice Cooper’s Welcome to My Nightmare (1975) led to a recommendation from producer Bob Ezrin to Gabriel, who in 1976 was about to record his first eponymous solo album after leaving his post as lead singer for prog-rockers Genesis. He has been a contributor to Gabriel recordings and tours ever since.
“One of the reasons Tony has been so much in demand for so long is that he is extraordinarily musical without being flashy,” Gabriel says in an email. “Often there is a ‘look at me’ element to virtuoso players. Tony always wants to let the song do the talking. His personality is a mix of a quiet learned professor and an irrepressible enthusiastic child.”
Levin has used his platform with Gabriel to showcase innovations such as his funk fingers — a percussive tool he developed at the singer’s suggestion after he saw Marotta drumming on Levin’s bass strings — and his use of the Chapman stick, a guitarlike instrument played by finger tapping.
Gabriel enthuses over these experimental instincts. “Sometimes, I have an idea for a bass melody as in ‘Big Time’ or ‘Don’t Give Up’, but once they are in Tony’s hands they come to life in a very different way,” he says, referring to songs from his biggest-selling album, 1986’s So. He credits Levin and Katché with laying down the “killer groove” for what became the worldwide hit single “Sledgehammer”.
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The two collaborated again on last year’s i/o, Gabriel’s first album of new material in more than 20 years. But Levin is still forging new musical relationships, and recently fulfilled a longtime dream by recording on a forthcoming Elton John track. He also continues to perform with his bands Stick Men and Levin Brothers, which features his keyboard-playing sibling Pete.
“Guys like me are going to keep playing regardless. The victories are when you play good music. The losses are when you have to play less than good music to make a living,” he says, though he concedes that there hasn’t been much of that.
“When I say those words I smile, because I’ve been extraordinarily lucky. How about that session in 1976 where I met Robert Fripp and Peter Gabriel and Steve Hunter, all of whom I’m still making music with 40 years later? What if I’d been sick or wasn’t called to do that session? I’m a lucky guy and I know it.”