Notes From An Artist

A Conversation with Bassist Tony Levin (John Lennon, King Crimson, Pink Floyd)

February 15, 2022
Notes From An Artist
A Conversation with Bassist Tony Levin (John Lennon, King Crimson, Pink Floyd)
Show Notes Transcript

His versatility as a bassist is incomparable, anchoring tours and/or albums by Peter Gabriel, King Crimson, John Lennon, Pink Floyd, Lou Reed, Alice Cooper, Buddy Rich, Peter Frampton, Gotye, Carly Simon, Judy Collins, Paula Cole, Chuck Mangione, Steven Wilson, James Taylor, Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe to cite a select few. An innovator on electric bass, upright, and Chapman Stick, Tony is also one of the world’s first bloggers – beginning with his internet diaries in the 1990s! Humble, humorous, and all about the “Big M” – that’s Tony!


The Tony Levin Playlist

A Conversation With Tony Levin...

TS: David, what can we say about Tony Levin that has not already been said? 

Or perhaps not enough things have been said about Tony because to many civilians outside of the recording industry or those who are not academic or armchair 20th century pop music scholars - his name is not readily recognizable! But all who listen tonight will certainly recognize his work! 

His versatility as a bassist is incomparable, anchoring tours and/or albums by Peter Gabriel, King Crimson, John Lennon, Pink Floyd, Lou Reed, Alice Cooper, Buddy Rich, Peter Frampton, Gotye, Carly Simon, Judy Collins, Paula Cole, Perry Como, Chuck Mangione, Steven Wilson, James Taylor, Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe to cite a select few. 

He has released seven albums under his own name as of 2022 in addition to numerous collaborative collections.

An innovator on electric bass, upright, and Chapman Stick, Tony is also one of the world’s first bloggers – beginning with his internet diaries in the 1990s! Humble, humorous, and all about the “Big M” – that’s Tony!

David, you refer to Tony as the ‘Jack LaLanne” of rock and roll…

Notes From An Artist Note: Jack LaLanne was the “Godfather of Physical Fitness” from the early 1950s until his passing in 2011 at the age of 96. Bestselling author and host of “The Jack LaLanne Show” from 1951 to 1985 – LaLanne was a ubiquitous presence in American pop culture – appearing on talk, variety programs and print media and often the subject of references spanning comedians, politicians, writers, journalists, and academics.

DCG: Yes! Tony has been going strong – pun intended – for over forty-five years. Whether he’s doing a commercial jingle date or playing with King Crimson – Tony is mentally and physically fit in his 70s. 

[Notes From An Artist Note: “Jingles” as they were commonly known in the golden era of television and broadcast are a form of “sound branding” via brief, simple melodic motifs that are associated with the promotion of a product or service in audio and visual advertisements. Jingle work was an essential element of being a studio musician from the 60s-90s analog era of the recording industry. Nowadays jingles are done mostly by a single artist / producer utilizing digital technology.]  

What I appreciate about Tony is his humility, his thirst for knowledge, and his quest for new musical experiences. I salute him. 

TS: It was also very refreshing to us to hear the response ‘I don’t know” when he was not able to answer a question definitively! A rare talent in these times. He’s played on over 500 album releases, he continues to more forward artistically. 

DCG: Let’s bring in Tony Levin!

TS: Tony, welcome to the show!

TL: Thanks for having me.

TS: In honor of Mr. Levin I’m not adorned in my usual headwear hence my shaved head is revealed akin to Tony’s appearance. I am Tony Levin’s doppelganger! 

DCG: I was going to shave my head, but it’ll probably never grow back!

(laughter)

TS: I’m often mistaken for Tony Levin. I get seated at the best tables at restaurants, it’s a great pick-up line in singles bars. However, when I play bass – people immediately recognize that I am not Tony Levin.

(laughter) 

TL: That’s funny. Hey, for those of a certain age I used to get mistaken for G. Gordon Liddy. But I got there first with the shaved head - he adopted the look I have now…

G. Gordon Liddy photo 

[Notes From An Artist Notes: George Gordon Battle Liddy aka G. Gordon Liddy was an FBI agent and attorney convicted of conspiracy, burglary, and illegal wiretapping for his role in the Watergate scandal during the Nixon administration. In his later years Liddy was a popular TV news and talk show guest, lecturer, author, and columnist, among other endeavors.] 

TS: David, Tony has not only distinguished himself as a bassist – he is an internet pioneer. Back in the 1990s, Tony started a ‘blog’ – before the term even existed dubbed ‘Papa Bear.’ 

TL: In the mid-1990s people had the technology available to start their own websites. I quickly found that the people who came to my website were not interested in purchasing my CDs – which was done by mail in those days. 

Instead, what they were interested in were my stories and photographs from performing on the road with Peter Gabriel and other artists. So that’s what I started to document. 

DCG: Musicians notoriously have lots of down time on the road, and there obviously is a journalist gene lurking inside you. What inspired you to create a blog?

TL: Good question, I have no idea! In those days websites had email addresses and even home addresses. People wrote to me asking for more anecdotes, more images from the concerts and backstage. I developed a special connection with the audience. 

There is a barrier between the audience and the performer… and sometimes that barrier is necessary. The web, especially in the early days, took down some of that wall. 

What I quickly learned that people loved seeing pictures of themselves in the audience. So habitually, I would take pictures of the audience, sometimes during a show, but mostly after a performance. Even when I played small clubs. 

TS: What also interesting is that Papa Bear is archived, and available to the masses, and it retains the design of how websites appeared in the 1990s. 

TL: Let me throw a number at you; 220 pixels was the most you could put up for pictures. My archiving was not so good back then, so all the pictures I saved on floppy discs are 220 pixels wide. Recently when I put out a book of photos throughout the years (The Road Dairy) I couldn’t use any of those.

TS: Let me read from the scriptures of Levin as told on Papa Bear: ‘In the beginning there was bass. I was Fender, probably a Precision, but it could have been Jazz…nobody knows! 

God looked down upon it and saw that it was good. In fact it was very good, and couldn’t be improved on at all – all though men would later try. 

Then he created a man to play the bass but more and more as time passed and having little else to do, the man came into practice upon the bass and man began to develop a great set of chops! 

He played faster and faster until the notes rippled trough the breeze like a blast from the heavens. God heard this, and he became bugged…

God spoke to the man… ‘listen man, if I wanted Jimi Hendrix I would have created the guitar …which is another story.’ 

DCG: This is your life, Tony Levin!

(laughter)

TS: David, it’s on the internet…it has to be true!

TL: I hadn’t revisited that passage in quite a while, thank you for reminding me of it!

DCG: The last time we met, I was doing an article on Trey Gunn (Chapman Stick, King Crimson – both Levin and Gunn were in the “double trio incarnation of King Crimson from 1994-97 with Fripp, drummers Bill Bruford and Pat Mastelotto, and guitarist / vocalist Adrian Belew) – and you gave these Funk Fingers to me.

[Notes From An Artist Notes: Invented by Levin, “Funk Fingers” are bamboo shoot like drumsticks attached to the fingers of a bass guitarist for rendering percussive sounds on the strings. The intention is to replicate the resonance of drumming on the strings as purveyed by Jerry Marotta on the Peter Garbriel hit “Big Time.” Levin also used Funk Fingers on the tracks “Steam” and “Secret World.” To view Levin’s Funk Fingers in action - check out the Gabriel concert film Secret World Live (1994).] 

TS: Tony, you commenced your career as a classical bassist. Take us back to the beginning…

TL: Let me thank you for being so knowledgeable about me! It’s a good reminder to myself. As a youth I was obsessed with classical music. I attended Eastman School of Music in Rochester and there was a drummer there named Steve Gadd, who played both classical and jazz and a little bit of rock in those days.

Steve had nobody to do gigs with – and being the only bass player in the school who wanted to go out and perform live I got a second education without having aimed at it. 

I soon discovered that I liked being the only bass player instead of one of eight players. Steve and I branched off into rock music when we left school.

I happen to arrive in New York when there was somewhat of a shortage of bassists. You could be in town, play with a few guys and suddenly they’d say to me ‘could you play a jingle tomorrow morning?’ It became so different in later years. 

DCG: The first time I heard you and Gadd together was when a friend of mine brought me a copy of Margie Joseph’s Margie album (1975). 

TL: That would have been an LP, there were no CDs then – that’s a great memory.  

This just popped into my mind. Every studio had a bass amp back then – usually an Ampeg B15. And it had a lock on it. There was this thing called the ‘Bass Amp Club.’ The bass players all had contributed to this amp – and they had the key. By the time I was doing studio work, the bass players left them unlocked. So I was one of the first bass players to use the amp for free. That was one of the many quirky things about being a studio musician in the 1970s.

Also, all of the engineers and producers wanted bass players to use a Fender Precision. Reluctantly if you had a Jazz bass they could live with that. And the engineers had as much authority as the producers as to whether they would call a bass player back for more work. 

By blind luck, I happened to have a Fender Precision. When I did a session, the engineer would usually compliment me ‘love your sound!’ There was no variation of sound. There was no ‘Tony Levin’ sound. It was all the Precision with the treble rolled up. I was very good at playing with a metronome, but I had to get used to playing with a click track. I never did that as a classical musician. But an engineer helped me out, I’d go into his studio after hours and work with a click track at various tempos.  

It was easy to get work. The music wasn’t so great all the time. When I look back, which I often do not, but as you are asking me these great questions – I was not so much of an artist per se – but more of a craftsman. I showed up on time, played the right notes which were usually written out with the right tone and time. 

I learned a lesson early on that the arranger does not want the notes he wrote – he wants the notes he imagined. The proper thing was to change the notes and to make the part as good as it could be. 

Believe it or not, I had a hard time with that because I was a classical musician, and I was trained to play exactly what was written on the page! Even if it’s the wrong note. If the chord is C and the chart says B you play the B because you’re a classical ‘jerk!’ (laughter)

You’d have to get permission from the conductor to change the note! 

After awhile I figured out what the arrangers wanted and I gave it to them. 

Gradually I got the opportunities to play on albums wherein the producers allowed me some latitude. I had been doing many disco records previously. 

DCG: You were getting paid by the hour and time is money!

TL: Exactly. I recall doing a Perry Como session. He was in the vocal booth with his cardigan sweater, like he’s supposed to have, with strings and horns – all on the clock. They don’t want to hear the bass player say ‘hey I made a mistake, can we do that again?’ 

You had to do it right every time. 

Now with say, Motown, in Detroit, James Jamerson’s bass lines became the hooks. But in New York City session scene, that’s not how they operated.  

I recall doing a James Brown session, and luckily, he was not there, but I didn’t know how to play short bass notes! Hard to believe that I didn’t really know his music given how popular he was. So I played long notes. I’m sure they replaced me afterwards. 

DCG: What point in your career did producers start hiring you to be you?

TL: I didn’t really keep track. But the date that comes up for me on that topic was July 1976 when producer Bob Ezrin called me to come to Toronto to record with this guy I had not heard of – Peter Gabriel. He had just left the band Genesis. And how fortunate am I that I accepted the job! 

By that time, I had done a few Alice Cooper records, and Lou Reed’s Berlin with Bob so I was comfortable. I went to Canada and I met Peter Gabriel and Robert Fripp! I am still making music with both of them today – and I have been inspired by them since the first day I worked with Peter and Robert! 

That’s the way music goes, you can do something that you may not think is a great idea at first then you get to embark on this whole other career that you never even imagined! Just like when I met Steve Gadd! 

To this day when I say ‘no’ to a project – in the back of my mind I think ‘could this be a missed opportunity here? Could it be I just don’t understand the music? Could it be something I haven’t been exposed to?’ 

TS: On this show we often discuss the benefits of have a formal music education. In the world of digital technology, you can learn about the bass on a YouTube channel – for better or for worse. 

My feeling is that if you learn music formally – it makes it possible to analyze music that you like, and incorporate those lessons into your own style of playing. For example, I may not have the chops to play a Tony Levin bass line as heard on King Crimson or Peter Gabriel. But I can examine the rhythm and harmony and put that to use in my own music. 

TL: Good question, and you’re hitting on a larger subject as well. Let me veer off it a little bit. I feel that having played classical was a benefit to me – in my whole approach to playing bass – not just the technical skills I acquired. It’s much bigger than that. 

Classical musicians have a reverence for the ‘best of the best music.’ We – I’ll say ‘we’ even though I am not one of them anymore – we obsess on excellence. Take Beethoven’s Second Symphony - we’d think ‘ah even he was not good enough to live up to our standards every time. (laughter) 

Only the best conductors playing with the best orchestras could do that symphony justice. That’s the classical attitude – you could call it snobbish… and that’s the downside of it.

When a conductor comes in and wants to do something modern…and the orchestra members go ‘aw Jeez, let’s do Beethoven’s 3rd again!’ 

So, I took that standard of excellence attitude for whatever I was playing. Jazz musicians have what is referred to as ‘big ears.’ In my opinion, jazz players hear in a more sophisticated way than classical players. They know what is going on – and you guys know this – there are little jokes here and there, the interplay does not exist in classical music. 

That is a valuable approach I take from jazz into rock. The wonderful thing about rock is the power of the music. Never mind the sophistication of classical, never mind the ears and subtilties of jazz… I love that. 

Of course, in King Crimson we have a bit of that classical and jazz sophistication. And I love each of those genres. There are some not so great things about the genres – but a ‘player’ can overcome that.

I don’t think I answered your question…

DCG: But it veers into my question. A few weeks ago we interviewed Trey Gunn.

TL: Great guy!

DCG: Yes! And the topic of transcription books came up… and Trey is working King Crimson transcriptions… did Crimson ever use charts?

TL: No there were never charts. I made my own. Every player I’ve run into has their own way of making a chart. It may be writing out all the notes, or it may not be. It was different in different eras of the band. 

Just for fun I once collected all the versions I had of one piece – the first one was six pages long and had most of the notes written out. I would find a name such as ‘the Fairy Fingers section’ which Robert Fripp would usually come up with. Once I memorized that I would recall ‘Fairy Fingers’ then there would be ‘Fairy Fingers in G, Fairy Fingers Reversed, Fairy Fingers Upside-down…’  I knew I would eventually have to play this live, and I didn’t want to have my head buried in six pages… 

Writing a chart helps me learn a piece, but it also detracts from helping me memorize a piece. In the case of King Crimson, where the music is complicated, I gradually pare down my charts. 

I get it down to one page, then eventually no pages.

TS: King Crimson are among the quintessential album artists. Is the format relevant now in the age of streaming? 

TL: I’m going to bow out as a non-expert…there are many things I am a non-expert about and I try to recognize that as best I can!

Every day I play on people’s records. I record remotely most of the time now.  I don’t even ask them if it’s going to be released! 

TS: You played on a Ringo Starr album in 1977 entitled Ringo the 4th. You played on John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s ‘comeback’ album Double Fantasy (1980). I recall in an interview that John’s instruction to you was ‘I hear you’re good, just don’t play too many notes!’    

Unlike anonymous session work and relatively unspecified sideman roles, you had the ears of the world on you with two Beatles. I don’t think it gets any bigger in the rock world than working with The Beatles. Was there pressure on you in those situations? 

TL: Another good question! There was no pressure. There was a lot to those sessions, but pressure was not part of it. Partly because of the way I am, and the other session musicians on the dates likely feel the same… I never ask why I was chosen for a particular project.

I show up, listen to the music, and I concentrate on trying to create the best bass part for the song. 

When John said that to me, I told him not to worry! And I knew I would not overplay on his stuff. The Lennon sessions were a pleasure, and I can say that the other guys felt the same.

Around the same era I did a Buddy Rich live album – and being in Buddy’s band is nothing but high pressure – but of the kind that I could handle.

Ringo’s sessions were different that most that I’ve done. It was not great. Ringo didn’t feel good about us New York studio musicians. Why should he do an album with guys he did not know – including Steve Gadd playing drums along with Ringo!  

All of which is okay musically – but Ringo was put in a position that made him uncomfortable and he communicated that pretty well to us. It’s hard to know what to do when an artist is unhappy with you just because he does not know you. I felt bad about it, but there was nothing I could do. Maybe somebody different that me could have spoken the right words to make him feel cool but…I’m not that wise a person!

Of all the sessions I’ve done over the years, that’s the only time I was in such a situation.

DCG: When you’re on a session with a high-profile artist, do you ever research what their previous bass players have done before you enter the studio?

TL: I never research the artist – maybe I should! And it’s not because I like to go in fresh – I’m an idiot! I just show up!

I played on a few albums with David Bowie. And it was near here – I’m in Kingston New York and the studio was just outside of Woodstock at a little place on near the top of a mountain.

I had never been there even though it’s in my area. I showed up - I knocked on one door and David Bowie answered in his underwear! It turned out to be the artist’s residence and not the studio! And his first reaction was ‘who the hell are you!’ (laughter)

That was my introduction to David Bowie! No pressure there! (laughter) 

I wasn’t aware of Genesis when I first started working with Peter Gabriel – I became very familiar with them afterwards. The same with King Crimson, I had never really listened to them before I joined the band.

On my King Crimson audition – which I did not realized was an audition, I thought we were just getting together to play and perhaps form a new band – they showed me the piece ‘Red’ which I had never heard. I didn’t play it like the recording because I was not aware of it – but they liked it and I got the gig. The guys in the band also told me that Jeff Berlin auditioned for King Crimson.

In those days I was very quick to pick things up – I was young and the brain cells were working!

TS: Two colleagues of ours, Kenny Aaronson and Donnie Nossov auditioned as well. Robert was situated in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of New York City as he was interested in the punk movement in the late 70s and lived there. 

[Notes From An Artist Notes: Hell's Kitchen is a neighborhood situated on the West Side of midtown Manhattan. Its borders are comprised of 34th Street (south), 59th Street (north), 8th Avenue (east) and the Hudson River (west). Noted for its working class, gritty environs, the low cost of living in said neighborhood attracted many artists in the 1970s.] 

According to Donnie, he too auditioned by playing ‘Red’ – which he said Robert played extremely up tempo!

TL: And I was the only one who didn’t know it was an audition! (laughter) 

Again, I thought it was going to be a new band, and for the first few months we referred to the project as ‘Discipline’ – which became the title of the first album in 1981 when it was decided that it would be a King Crimson release. When Robert heard the music we wrote together he declared that it was ‘worthy of King Crimson.’ 

DCG: Weren’t you rehearsing at S.I.R. in New York City?

TL: It could have been, I do not remember. 

DCG: At the time I was playing with Ian MacDonald (King Crimson founding member, songwriter) in the late 1970s and we were in one studio, and you guys were in the studio next to us. You must have been in the band at that time because it was the first time that Robert and Ian had seen each other many years. 

TL: You need to write a book! That might have been slightly before my time, I was not invited to join until 1981. It’s hard for me to remember back that far! (laughter) 

 TS: Tell us how you gravitated towards the Chapman Stick?

TL: Around 1975 I started hearing about it from other musicians. It’s funny to think back, because I used to play tap style on the bass. Not on records or sessions, I did it more obnoxiously when I was practicing or between takes in the studio. I don’t do it anymore; I’ve outgrown being obnoxious!

So the guys who knew my playing habits told me that there was a new instrument out that was designed to be played by tap – touch technique.  I said I wasn’t interested if it was not a bass, but they informed me that it was more of a bass and a guitar on one fretboard. 

The next time I was in Los Angeles, I purchased one. I was not the first to get it, at the time there was a band called Kittyhawk which I think featured two or three stick players. 

I was about to do Peter Gabriel’s first album. And I found it very useful because the bass side of the stick has a lot of attack. The strings are in 5ths, and kind of backwards compared to the bass. That helped me come up with different ideas that were very valuable for the music. It was very different from the same old four string wherein my fingers just played riffs.

DCG: I love your Stick work on Joan Armatrading’s ‘I Love It When You Call Me Names.’ Those motifs and tone would not come from a bass guitar.

TL: There you go! I don’t logically figure those things out, I think like a typical bass player, like most of us do! I have in some part of my brain; the sounds I know I can get out of certain instruments. If I’m working with Joan, I’m a lucky guy, because she’s great. I don’t even have to think – those sounds start humming themselves to me and I start putting notes to it and I reach for the appropriate instrument. 

It’s almost a Zen like process rather than say ‘I want to use my funk fingers on this record, or some riff I’ve worked out.’ It’s surrendering myself to the music, and hopefully helping the song and the artist. 

DCG: You and Eric Dolphy inspired my use of the Chapman Stick. The low B…and I didn’t have to play cello!

(laughter)

TL: Great!

TS: As you mention on your Papa Bear essays, you’ve been around ‘since the earth was still cooling….’ (laughter) Hopefully with age comes wisdom. As a young person, you’d never imagine playing music after age 50, 60, or even 70. Here is Tony Levin still going strong and finding new challenges. What keeps you going?

TL: Good question! I never thought about it, an alternative had never occurred to me! (laughter)

When I was young, I didn’t think about it either. In a different field than music, that question can be gone into quite deeply. 

Most of the musicians I know are like me: we just play! 

Certainly, there are other issues as one gets older. Mostly about health and traveling. I’m lucky enough to be still playing and healthy enough to tour and to do what I love to do which is to play music in front of an audience. 

To interpret your question; why should I look at my age and think ‘why should I still be doing this’ because this is what I still want to do. 

I’m lucky in that I knew at a young age what I wanted to do in life. I never had a plan such as ‘I’ll have bass gurus interviewing me on Zoom!’ (laughter) 

I’m exactly the way I was at 10 years old – I want to play the bass and I want to play good music. 

DCG: When you’re on tour, do you frequent the gym? Engage in regular exercises? 

TL: It depends on the band! 

We could do a whole hour on touring with Peter Gabriel and King Crimson -staying in very nice hotels with gyms, as opposed to traveling with Stickmen, The Levin Brothers, or the Tony Levin Band where it’s 8AM and we’re driving the van to the next gig! We stay in hotels without gyms. And there’s no time to take a walk!

I do a workout in my hotel room. It crossed my mind to do an older person hotel room workout on YouTube but why? I’m not good at it! (laughter) I should be watching a video on how to work out – not creating one. 

It’s important to keep your health and it gets more complex as you get older. 

TS: Do you find a greater appreciation for what you do in your so-called later years? 

TL: Absolutely! As for appreciation in senior years… I’m 75 now. And in your 70s- and 80s, people’s lives can get better. It may sound jive saying this, but on a day that you feel okay and can walk with no aches and pains is a really good day!

As we age it takes longer to heal. I remember my mom when she was elderly – when she could take a stroll outside even with a walker she would exclaim ‘this is a good day!’ And I understand that now. 

I really feel lucky to be playing music at any age! 

DCG: Having worked with great bandleaders yourself, how do you approach the role?

TL: I never thought of myself as a bandleader, but I am. What I learned from other bandleaders is to get good players and let them decide what to play. That’s what I like when someone hires me. 

When I send a drum track to Pat Mastelotto, it does not have a drum loop on it! There is this thing called ‘demo love’ – which means you get used to hearing the same thing on a demo. The more times you hear that drum machine part, the more you will get used to it and the harder it is for me to accept something different. Suppose Pat changes the time signature? If I just send him my part without drums, and he does that I’ll react ‘wow, that’s great!’ 

I don’t want to be that guy who says ‘what I had in mind was a backbeat here…’ I chose him to be with Stickmen because he’s him – not me! 

Robert Fripp carefully chooses the musicians for each incarnation of King Crimson to push the music in the direction that he feels it needs to go. He’s not going to tell everybody what parts to play. Sometimes he will suggest stuff, and a lot of times he suggests things by smiling or not smiling. 

It’s pretty rare in my forty years in the band where he’d say ‘I’d like you to play this…’ 

Just get the right musicians, tell them to be themselves, and take a deep breath!