Who is bernie worrell

In the 80s he was also a regular performer, live and on disc, with Talking Heads, and later collaborated with many other artists while recording a number of solo albums. A classically trained child prodigy, Worrell delighted in blending and cross-fertilising different musical styles.

Same mode in an Indian raga, same mode in an Irish ditty. His work with Talking Heads helped them to evolve from a new wave guitar band into a far more ambitious unit exploring funk, electronica and African music. Worrell was born in Long Branch, New Jersey, and when he was eight his family moved to nearby Plainfield.

By then he was already well on his way to a musical career. He had been born with perfect pitch, and had begun on the piano at the age of three, playing his first concert a year later. His musical education was closely supervised by his mother, who sang in a Baptist church choir and played the piano at local functions and fashion shows. What was going on there? Anything and everything. When my family first moved to Plainfield from Long Branch.

I was born in Long Branch, New Jersey, which is down by the shore. We moved to Plainfield and the word is that people heard that this so-called genius or whatever, somebody moved to town. At that time, five years. I wrote a piano concerto at 8-years-old and performed three concertos with part of the Washington Symphony and Plainfield Symphony Orchestra at years-old.

And then private lessons and all that stuff. Not passed that. I mix musics. I guess, I still have it in my head. They used to put classical music on a pedestal. So I took it down. My way. Because nothing is above anything. Everything is music, everything is related. Music is music. It depends on the person, the artist, whether they be an instrumentalist, vocalist, composer.

Depends on the person, how they hear it. And what you do with your gift and your talent. In my opinion. It all worked fine when we tried this earlier. In a harmony class, our teacher, our professor, first of all, you have to learn all the rules. You learn your harmony and theory and the basics. You have to learn the basics first and see how things work. Then throw that out and do what But after that, you break it. Or however you wanna put it. I heard it was like the first time that Elvis was on the Ed Sullivan show.

And apparently that led you astray, back from path of the concert pianist. And to me, they mixed all genres, including instrumentation. It opened a whole new world. Yes, George Martin , yes. Vocal group from Providence, Rhode Island. And their home base was Jim Nance, who was a Boston Patriots fullback at the time. He had a nightclub there. And when I was in college, I was playing in nightclubs.

I met them and I became their bandleader and that was part of my rebel part of me, of doing something else besides classical music. And I guess rebelling against my mom and stuff. Just the fact that I was playing in clubs at night and not strictly in school and whatnot. Like, when you were breaking away from the conservatory, who were your keyboard heroes?

What were the players that you looked up to for style? No one should look up to anybody. Just stuff. I guess Have some fun. Put some humor into it. If you want things to be alright, stop being so uptight and move on.

Maxine Brown. I want to hear the plethora of stories that go into that little I would audition different guitarists and drummers that would come and go, arrange the music, teach her songs to the different band members.

Because once you get used to somebody and, you know, the chemistry was there, then all of a sudden the drummer leaves, or the guitarist, and you got to start all over again. Some gigs with Wilson Pickett. Never did West Coast. And some comedians. We were the house band and there was like a revue. You had your dancers, then a comedian, then the vocalist. Pigmeat Markham , Moms Mabley. You might know these people. They were famous black comedians back in the day.

Dionne Warwick. Another art form is accompanying. I used to accompany all the opera vocalists, the opera students, in their lessons and their promotional recital. Is that what it was called? There was racism within the race. George Clinton and I, we moved to Canada, Toronto. We did a lot of Funkadelic, we used to open for Ted on the festivals. For me, the only thing was Motown. I marveled at, when I first saw the Motown studios, they were houses.

And all this great music came from, out of those buildings. Yeah, right. I mean, it was obscene. That sign. Hitsville USA. You probably got it. Excuse me. If it stinks, you need to call it out. When I listen to, I listen to reggae, Marley, man, Jamaica. Or college stations, or public radio. Well, this track, Bootsy had the track with just guitar and drums. So I laid the Moog synthesizer, the Minimoog. The old one, not the new stuff.

The old one, which is So anyway, I laid the bass line. ARP String Ensemble. How did you deal with, like, you know, fans expecting that song live and then trying to duplicate that on the road? You even toured with what, Clavinets , the Yamaha CP? Pedal board. A CS was amongst that, as well? People are keeping fit. And how many trailers did you have for all the outfits, then? And solo albums. Bootsy, the Rubber Band. Same guys. So he made two monies instead of And how did the distribution of all that money work within the actual group when it was coming in?

We might get to that in a minute then. What was your role in that? Did you have designated roles, or did the roles change in the different bands?

I was the music director and kept things in order. They were from the street, you know, but had this feel and I joined the group after being on the road with Maxine Brown. This was years later. I was in Bermuda with Maxine. It could be worse than being in Bermuda with her. Were you recording down there? No, she opened for Jimmy Smith. I forget the club. So, moved from Jersey to Detroit and the rest is history.

But what was the question? It was more like where you sat, or whether there were any defined roles between the different projects or whether it was just the same people Uh, yeah, I was the musical director and kept the music together, arranging all the different projects, putting - along with George - putting different combinations of musicians for this song, or this song. And making sure their pitch was correct. Because like I said, they were from the [streets].

I had to tighten stuff up, bring some order into the chaos. But chaos is good, too. Did you have different visions for the different projects when they had a different name? That deals with the words and stuff. I deal with the music. Start out with Hit me! How did the players react to that when they had to play that? Can you remember? I was nervous. That was my first attempt at arranging strings and horns.

The mix, again, I just think they were released from their Did they find it hard to play? Because some of the things clearly emulates what you can do with, like, your pitch-bend And loosen them up and everyone learns, everyone benefits.

But I know the range of each horn. French horns or, you know, cello, or whatever. I just play what I hear, or write what I hear. Randy, I think. Or Michael. I was nervous about that, but Randy and Michael Brecker playing my charts, along with Fred, that was Was it kind of hard for them? Because a lot of the guys you mentioned are, like, distinguished jazz cats, and Fred Wesley talks about this quite a lot, how he brought jazz into the funk, and stuff. And you coming from this other world, the more classical world, in a way.

He brought it together. Things happen for a reason. We got a few very brave people to lift this monster out of the basement [ referring to the Hammond organ on one side of the couch ].

Maybe this is a good time to use it to show us what you actually did there. Would that be possible? The sound effects what I do.

How about this? Shall we give your fingers a little breather? And, at special request of the honorary Chairman Mao , here is another track.

And maybe if you feel like it at some stage, maybe you wanna The notes. When I hear it now. Very sensitive. Hit it and quit it. I mean, the amplitude in that must be, what, 60db or something, and the fadeout at the end was almost a minute. What was that show like? It was the landing of the Mothership. It was spectacular. So, riding in the limos and all that, coming back from sound check, George and I were in, I looked at him and said, there was just a sea of cars coming from L.

Yeah, that was stupid. Philippe Wynne, the lead vocalist. He just made his entrance from The Spinners, I forgot about that. Yeah, I guess that one was hard to clear. Get that Phillipe Wynne sound, feel. At the same time, he explored and expanded his own musical ideas in every conceivable direction with a brazenness which was both revolutionary and evolutionary. From fanciful forays on clavinet which leaped without warning from guttural gulps to squiggly squeals to liquid Minimoog bass lines which herded listeners to the dance floor, it all represented new musical language.

Dre, Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, DMX and countless others having acknowledged his timeless grooves by building their tunes around his signature riffs. He co-wrote the score for the cult classic, Car 54, Where Are You?