The Musician’s Musician: Pino Palladino

The life of a studio musician can be a rough one. Even the most revered studio legends are often unknown to the average music listener, while the records they play on (for which they are often uncredited!) are cemented in time under someone else’s name. It’s an unfortunate truth of the music industry, which makes it all the more important that those of us who do know better celebrate the uncelebrated: the so-called “musician’s musicians” of the world.

Revered among studied bassists, Pino Palladino certainly fits into that mold. He’s played onstage and on record with many of the biggest names in music history, but few nonmusicians could tell you the name of “that lanky guy playing bass behind John Mayer.” Well, it’s about time to change that. Join us for the second entry in Sweetwater’s The Musician’s Musician series with a comprehensive look at Wales’s foremost bassist, the “British Jaco” — otherwise known as Pino Palladino.

Pino’s PreludeThe Low-end Sound of the ’80sA Penchant for PrecisionWho’s Next?A Journey with JohnPino’s Present OccupationsA Constant Dedication to Stylistic Re-inventionA Primer to Pino’s Gear

Pino’s Prelude

Pino’s story begins in Cardiff, Wales, in 1957. He was born to a Welsh mother and (if you couldn’t already guess from the name) a very Italian father. In what is somewhat of a tradition for the world’s most iconic bass players, Pino started on the guitar at age 14 before swapping over to bass three years later. Some of his earliest influences come in the form of contemporary rockers such as Led Zeppelin and Yes, but Pino’s musical and stylistic roots take a significantly deeper draw from the well of Motown, R&B, funk, and jazz.

At 18, roughly one year after picking up the 4-string, Pino made a purchase that formed the foundation of his career: a fretless bass. Why did Pino ditch the standard fretted bass guitar for its fretless sibling? It’s tempting to point out that Pino’s purchase perfectly coincides with the rise of Jaco Pastorius — inarguably the most famous fretless bass guitar player of all time — but Pino tells a different story.

In a 1985 interview with music magazine One Two Testing‘s Tony Bacon (now one of the world’s foremost guitar historians), Pino described his fretless fascination:

I made no big decision about fretless, I just thought I’d have a go at it, about five years ago... I think part of the reason I took up fretless may have been the influence of the synth bass parts on Stevie Wonder’s ‘Talking Book’ LP, that’s beautiful. And another early influence was John Martyn — Danny Thompson’s double bass was having an effect on me even before I thought about playing bass, it must have gone in sub-consciously somewhere.”Pino Palladino

To anyone familiar with Pino’s playing, this probably comes as little surprise — Pino’s always been more of a James Jamerson than a Jaco!

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The Low-end Sound of the ’80s

So, Pino spent his late teens and early 20s playing in bands and doing occasional session work, primarily playing his regular fretted bass. An early gig in 1981 with Jools Holland of Squeeze fame provided him his first big break, but 1982 would see Pino’s first real stylistic showcase in the form of Gary Numan’s I, Assassin album. In the same 1985 One Two Testing interview, Pino described how his fretless bass languished ”... until I did my stint with Gary Numan and he specifically wanted fretless bass.”

Pino came out of the gate swinging on this album, especially for such a famously modest and understated bassist. One year later, Pino achieved his true commercial breakthrough with Paul Young’s “Wherever I Lay My Hat (That’s My Home),” a cover of a somewhat underappreciated Marvin Gaye tune.

At the time, it was a simple session gig. Pino now often recounts in interviews how he was unsure whether his playing would even make it on the album, only to hear the finished mix on the radio with his now-iconic fretless line dialed up front and center in the mix. And while Pino is reportedly embarrassed that the line is “a bit out of tune,” according to The Guardian, the song reigned as a #1 hit in the UK for three weeks, propelling Pino to hushed stardom within the studio scene.

The Stravinsky-inspired fretless line that introduced “Wherever I Lay My Hat (That’s My Home)” was so crucial that Young quickly secured Pino for his band as a touring musician, but that was simply the beginning. By the end of the 1980s, Pino’s studio résumé read like a who’s who of rock royalty, including such iconic names as Elton John, Eric Clapton, David Gilmour, Don Henley, Phil Collins, and many more. It’s no exaggeration to say that Pino was likely the most sought-after studio bassist of the era. Frankly, the reason that chorused-out fretless bass playing sounds so positively ’80s to us now is primarily due to Pino and his trusty fretless Music Man StingRay.

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A Penchant for Precision

Pino’s fretless 4-string dominance in the 1980s solidified him as an all-time great, and he entered the 1990s as an absolute titan of the studio scene. So, did he sail off into the studio sunset, content to continue capitalizing on the sound that made him so successful? Not quite.

In the early 1990s, Pino largely swapped out his old fretless StingRay for a slew of vintage 1960s Fender Precision Basses — and yes, they had frets. His clients still included rock and pop music’s greatest artists, and he would add such iconic names as Tina Turner, David Crosby, Steve Lukather, Jeff Beck, and B.B. King to his ever-growing list of collaborators. However, it was clear that the 1990s were a period of re-invention for Pino, culminating in a complete musical 180 at the turn of the century.

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While recording Deuces Wild with B.B. King, Pino met a young artist named D’Angelo — an extremely accomplished neo-soul artist who requested that Pino play on his upcoming Voodoo album.

On the surface, it was a somewhat strange pairing — a middle-aged Welsh studio bassist and a young American soul musician who was completely unaware of Pino’s back catalog. Still, Pino remarked in an interview with All About Jazz: “As soon as we [Pino and D’Angelo] started playing an instant connection was formed and he recognized that too.” Some of Pino’s most iconic lines can be found on Voodoo, not least of which is the manic stutter-step funk of “Chicken Grease,” aided by the funky beat of the Roots drummer Questlove.

In the same All About Jazz interview, Pino explained:

The thing that I really liked was that at that point he [D’Angelo] was not aware of my previous work, like my fretless bass work from the eighties. For me that was very refreshing because he approached me as if I was a new guy, he took me for what I was playing without being influenced by the reputation that preceded me... in some way that circumstance gave me the opportunity to reinvent myself as a bassist.”Pino Palladino

Pino continued his usual routine of laying down lines for the world’s most accomplished rock and pop stars, but with his work on the Grammy Award–winning Voodoo, he added modern R&B, neo soul, and hip-hop to his ever-growing repertoire. His studio credits soon sported the likes of Talib Kweli, J Dilla, Erykah Badu, De La Soul, Femi Kuti (the son of the legendary afrobeat pioneer Fela Aníkúlapó Kuti), and countless others.

Who’s Next?

In 2002, just before legendary rockers the Who were preparing for a tour, bassist John Entwistle tragically died at the age of 57. The band needed a replacement — and fast. Pino was wrapping up a session with the rapper Common when he heard the news about Entwistle and soon after received a call from Pete Townsend to replace Entwistle on their tour.

John Entwistle was a masterful bassist and arguably defined the instrument’s role in rock music in the 1960s — “My Generation” boasts the first proper bass solo in rock music, after all. Still, the gig should have been a piece of cake for a player as accomplished as Pino, right?

Pino Palladino onstage with the Who’s Roger Daltrey during a 2008 tour. Kubacheck, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

In theory, sure. In practice, not exactly. The Who had racked up quite an extensive back catalog by 2002, with more than 10 albums under the band’s belt. That’s a lot of songs to learn but easily manageable for a prodigious player like Pino. What’s not so manageable was the time frame — Townsend requested that Pino be ready to play at the Who’s Hollywood Bowl gig in two days.

Pino flew to LA posthaste and met Townshend at his hotel. Townshend handed Pino a stack of CDs and wished him luck. Pino told The Guardian:

I flew to LA, thinking, what are you doing? You don’t even know many Who songs... At the first rehearsal, Pete comes over and says: ‘You’re going to have to play louder’... That’s the one instruction you keep getting when you work with the Who: ‘... turn it up, we can’t hear you!’Pino Palladino

While he probably didn’t get much sleep the next day or two, Pino nailed the gig and would continue to tour with the Who for years afterward.

A Journey with John

It’s fair to say that versatility is the bread and butter of any studio musician, but Pino’s trajectory from fretless phenom of the ’80s to P Bass–wielding studio powerhouse to modern R&B/soul/hip-hop mainstay to touring bassist for the Who is enough to give you whiplash. And that’s before we get to the gig that arguably made Pino a household name among modern guitar and bass players.

Left to right: Steve Jordan, John Mayer, and Pino Palladino after a John Mayer Trio performance. Noelle Smith, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

For the last decade and a half, Pino has stood steadfast as John Mayer’s low-end sideman, both on record and on the stage. Their partnership began with the John Mayer Trio’s 2005 live album Try! This is the album that transformed Mayer’s public image from a raspy-voiced pop singer to a seriously talented blues guitarist. In typical Pino fashion, his playing on the album is very groove-oriented; it’s busy enough to keep you enthralled but locked straight into the pocket to propel the rhythm-guitar-less trio forward.

Pino has continued to work closely with Mayer ever since, and from 2006’s Continuum to 2021’s Sob Rock, Pino’s nimble playing has been present on just about every John Mayer album following Try! As a bonus fact, it’s worth noting that Mayer is a big fan of Pino’s early studio work, and he’s been known to toss out reworked covers of D’Angelo’s “Chicken Grease” occasionally.

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Pino’s Present Occupations

Well into his 60s, Pino is still just as sought-out in the studio as ever. Modern pop stars like Ed Sheeran, Harry Styles, and Adele have cut their biggest hits with Pino laying down the low end, and he still frequently collaborates with many of the big-name stars he originally started working with four decades ago.

The year 2021 saw the release of Pino’s very first solo (sort of) album, Notes With Attachments. The project reportedly began life as a solo enterprise, but over its two-year musical incubation, it transformed into a split project with guitarist Blake Mills. Simply put, it’s a fitting, if unorthodox, encapsulation of what makes Pino so great in the first place: Pino’s bass playing often takes a backseat to better serve the album’s whimsical third-stream-esque jazzy ornamentations and fractured grooves, and it’s clear that Pino is as much as a composer on the project as he is a bassist. Pino still has plenty of impressive playing on the project, but Notes With Attachments is a cohesive collection of stunning musical compositions, not a bass-chops showcase.

A Constant Dedication to Stylistic Re-invention

So, why is Pino so respected among in-the-know musicians? What about his style has made him a pillar of the studio world for more than four decades? And, finally, why is he a “musician’s musician” rather than a household name?

Firstly, his style: the key to Pino’s playing is how he skillfully threads the needle between expressive 4-string expertise and what the song requires to succeed. Pino’s sheer depth of musical intuition allows his bass playing to elevate every other element in a song, supplying enthralling lines that weave through the composition without stepping on anyone’s toes. Listen to Pino’s most revered tracks — his playing is a masterclass on musical restraint, but he also has a deep knowledge of when to let loose with a ripping fill or a surgically placed lick. Let’s also not forget the incomprehensible breadth of Pino’s work — any musician versatile enough to back John Mayer, D’Angelo, Keith Urban, B.B. King, Ed Sheeran, Nine Inch Nails, the Who, and even Luciano Pavarotti is worthy of the awe and respect of a mere musical mortal.

Pino’s skills are immensely valuable in the studio and when composing music — precious few pop and rock songs benefit from a technique-packed bass solo. To the untrained eye, they’re not particularly flashy. It takes a certain degree of musicianship to appreciate the nuance and depth of Pino’s output truly.

Plus, the cards are stacked against Pino in the fame department. He’s a bassist. He’s a studio musician. His style favors groove and subtlety over speed and showmanship. And, perhaps most importantly, he’s an utterly humble man that prefers to let his bass do the talking. But while the average music listener may not know him (by name, anyway), Pino is just about the epitome of a “musician’s musician.”

A Primer to Pino’s Gear

Last but not least, let’s run through a brief summary of Pino’s gear — a tall task considering just how long he’s been at it, so consider this just a primer!

The majority of Pino’s early ’80s work was cut on a single-pickup 1979 Music Man StingRay — the modern equivalent of which would be found in the Ernie Ball Music Man StingRay series of basses. While Sweetwater doesn’t carry a fretless variety of StingRay bass at this time, plenty of other fretless basses will admirably cover the treble-heavy tone of Pino’s 4-string.

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Pino heavily used chorus pedals during this period in addition to an octave pedal. In a somewhat unique move, Pino frequently shifts his octave pedal on and off during certain performances, emphasizing certain passages or fills with the wet effect.

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If you’re more of a fan of Pino’s later work, then almost any style of Fender Precision Bass will do nicely. Early 1960s-style models earn extra points, but the truth is that just about any split-coil P-style will do the job.

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Who Should We Cover Next?

First Eddie Hazel, and now Pino Palladino — thus concludes the second entry into Sweetwater’s The Musician’s Musician series. Whether you’re looking to cop a few of Pino’s tones with a fresh new fretless/P-style bass or you have a suggestion for the next underrated musician we should cover, make sure to give your Sweetwater Sales Engineer a call at (800) 222-4700 for the best gear advice in the industry!
The post The Musician’s Musician: Pino Palladino appeared first on inSync.