Global Bass Online                                                                   January 2001

Chuck Rainey

A Giant Walks Among Us

ne of the most fascinating aspects of human nature with regards to musicianship, is how we react to fame and fortune. Whether we live in the past, regaling others with our accomplishments or whether we embrace the future, learning from those accomplishments but still eager for new vistas, new frontiers. 

Chuck Rainey is 60 years old. Now how does this mean anything relevant at all? Well, many people at the age of 60 are working at ways of slowing down. It is usually at this age that they start lining up all their toys and protecting them. Yet for Chuck, things are just really starting to roll. For decades as a backup musician on more recordings than anyone would think possible, movie scores, teaching clinics, books, videos, television scores, the list goes on, Chuck has served others. 

It is his turn now.

With the release of his newest CD, Sing & Dance, he takes four previously unrecorded originals & some of his favorite tunes from over the years and places his own special touch throughout. Sing & Dance is blessed with Chuck's pleasant voice, polished enough to convey the song convincingly, but 'real' enough to leave you feeling like you are listening to an actual person, not a voice created and processed in a studio. 

Ah, then there is the playing! Global Bass is of course a forum for bass players, so naturally we focus on Chuck's playing on this album. With Sing & Dance, Chuck balances flash with content brilliantly. The song comes first and always has for Chuck, but interwoven through those songs is one of the most intelligent balances between blistering chops and melodic understatement heard in a long time. Sing & Dance has something for the player in us all and a reminder of how we as bass players tie into an ensemble. An object lesson for us all. 

Chuck was kind enough to spend some time with us recently, talking a bit about the past, the things he has learned over the years and how he uses that knowledge in his live ensemble and on the record itself.

Global Bass: First of all, Chuck, great website you've had put together!

Chuck: We had a ball with it and we are still scuffling with it. Elliot Randall does the site, and he's actually really good at that stuff. 

GB: He hasn't loaded any pictures yet though, is that coming soon?

Chuck: Well, here's what's happensàHe lives in London, England and Darryl, the guy who does the scanning lives in Florida. Elliot is a friend and he's not charging me any money, so I'm not really pushing him, although I do talk with him and explain how important it is. It just takes a long time, I guess, we started that site around February. 

GB: And how is the site doing for 'hits', for visitors?

Chuck: I am averaging around 6 to 7 thousand hits a month. 

GB: Here's a predictable question for you, how old were you when you started playing bass?

Chuck: I started playing when I was 21.

GB: Somewhat of a late starter then?

Chuck: I played other instruments before. I came from guitar to bass and then before that I was a brass major in High School & College.

GB: What led you to playing bass? Was it a matter of the heart, of the bass appealing to you?

Chuck: It was more or less, my heart. I've always been sorta in the bass clef, even coming up in choirs, I was always a tenor, then as I got older a baritone and then in High School I was singing bass in the choir. I always kinda liked the bass clef although I was steered towards the viola and the piano and stuff like that. I was in a band where we had 3 guitar players and a drummer. Everybody song and we were playing more or less R & B, and I was playing rhythm with a husband and wife team.

I was the other rhythm player. Except I was a 'picky' rhythm player, I wasn't strumming, more picking single note things. Finally someone said, "Well let's go get you a bass!" So that's what I did. I actually had started tuning my guitar down before that. I think that band was really instrumental in me getting a bass. 

GB: Were you educated in the theory end of playing from a very early age?

Chuck: By the time I started playing the bass I was already fairly well versed in playing theory, coming from the other instruments. It was a classical environment, reading and performing was the name of the game from age 8. 

So now when I got to the bass, I found it rather easy, it was a larger version of the guitar. I taught myself how to read and at age 21, I already had a pretty good handle on note values and stuff like that. I always advise people now that when you start looking at your instrument you should also start looking at it theoretically. 

GB: And yet so many people opt for tablature. They find bass theory so intimidating, why do you think that is? Some people think of tablature as a lazy person's way of approaching music.

Chuck: Not only is it lazy, it just doesn't make sense to me. Tablature doesn't give what is actually there, it just shows you where to place your hands. It takes so long. If a person learns how to do that, if they can learn where the notes are on the neck, then they can learn how to read. It is easy to learn how to read. 

GB: So you are saying that if they took the time to learn music theory, they could also talk to musicians outside of their own instrument as well. 

Chuck: This is true. I don't understand when people go to tab. As a matter of fact every time I do something and someone asks me for a bass line in Tab, I flat out say, "I don't understand it and I don't do Tab". 

GB: You're not going to promote it in any way?

Chuck: No way at all. 

GB: That is a constant I am finding fairly often in the more accomplished players.

Chuck: All bass lines are within a scale. All scales are like a graph. It's like playing dominoes or Chinese Checkers. You make a design with the patterns. Once you have already made a design on your fretboard with one pattern, it should be for any bass player, very easy to recognize what things sound like. Like 6ths and Dominant 7ths, and Major 7ths. It's all in a scale, so when they start looking at Tab, I just don't understand why they don't sit down and learn where 'G' on the neck.

GB: When you first set out, at age 21, did you aspire to being a performing musician for the balance of your life?

Chuck: To be perfectly honest with you, once I started playing, I did not see a future going all the way up till now. I just didn't see it that way, but most of the people I came up with in my family knew that I was gonna be a musician. I was always involved in some band, some singing group, or some marching band or something like that. I never looked at it that way. I just looked at it as something I did and I loved to do.

GB: So no one tried to get you a 'real job'?

Chuck: Oh, I had a couple 'real jobs' but I didn't last long. But you gotta do what you gotta do sometimes. 

GB: Is it actually true that you have been on more than a 1000 albums?

Chuck: I don't boast that, now I know I have been on a lot of records. When you consider that from 1967 specifically through to when I left LA in 1980, when you do it everyday, it adds up. Especially in New York, everyday I was on a train going Downtown to sometimes 3 or 4 sessions. Everyday!

GB: So ultimately it doesn't matter worth a damn how many albums you were on, the fact was that you were working all the time and that was wonderful.

Chuck: Plus a lot of musicians are like anybody else on the planet. A lot of musicians go too far with their claims. Everything I claim, everything that is on my site and in my press kit, I either got from AllMusic.com or from somebody else's website.  {Check out some of Chuck's recording list.}


There are so many people walking around saying they were on this project and that project, when they really weren't. A lot of times people will be on a project and after their part is done or the project is over, they will overdub the bass with another player. So the original player, if he is keeping records, can say he played on this or that, and it's not necessarily correct. If your player performance isn't on it, you weren't on it. 

I try and stay away from people that make a lot of bogus claims. If anybody checks up on me, it's all there. 

GB: In the Chuck Rainey Coalition, I noticed that in one of the incarnations of this current band, you opt for a group that is guitarless. There's sax and drums and you and no guitar. Is that a conscious choice?

Chuck: The band that I have here and with the new record, there is guitar on it, if you find a good guitar player, you are kinda stuck like a duck. If you find a good guitar player or sax player, if they've gotta go something else, it kinda loses some of your bandstand. I've been spoiled with guitar players. These guitar players were so special that I became a bit spoiled. I play a lot of 'guitar-y' things, so unless it's an excellent guitar playeràno. Now on this record, a guitar player produced it, (Rusty Burns), so there is guitar all through it. But I prefer in Jazz not to use guitar, just to use 2 keyboards. 

GB: 'Hangin` Out Right' was an album released in `99?

Chuck: It was released September of the previous year. 

GB: And this most recent one, "Sing & Dance' was released in 2000. That's actually fairly close together!

Chuck: I'm ready to go again! I'm gonna have to wait for a little while though, give this one some momentum. This one is a much better record than 'Hangin` Out Right'. 

GB: I noticed that all but one song on the current album is on your set list. So listening to 'Sing & Dance' could be like sitting down with your band for a set or two?

Chuck: I've got a fairly long set list depending upon the venue. If it's a local gig, it's either conventions, parties or Smooth Jazz, so we do a lot of that work with the trio: Bass, Piano and Drums. With my 6 string bass I love playing melodies. I am not so much of a soloist, although I do get off into that. Part of my problem is that I've been involved in so many kinds of music in my career that I like all styles and kinds of music. I really do, so I have my heart in a lot of places. In a way, that was what was wrong with 'Hangin` Out Right', too much diversity between cuts. And although I like that, it didn't go well with distributors. They didn't know what to play! Or how to play it. The good old days are gone, where the jockey listens to it and he decides what they are gonna play. 

With this records we are having a lot of success in that this baby is getting so much response that it's gonna get out of control! 

GB: You were saying, you are already ready to go into the studio to cut the next one. Do you think you might continue with the winning format of the current album?

Chuck: It all depends on just how successful 'Sing & Dance' is. If the kind of venues we get are predicated on that kind of music, then I'll go ahead and do it again. 

But what I would like to do is 'Latin Jazz Fusion'. Instrumental jazz with my six string bass, now that's what I want to do. I think I have found the key to make it successful. What I mean by 'successful' is getting a larger label involved and really doing it to get up on the Jazz lists. I would love to do that kind of music, because that's where I came from really. I'm not really a singer, I haven't sung in years. But the more I do it, the better I will get.

GB: Well you've got the highly polished bass playing and the 'down-home' real singing there as well. That 'real' quality to your voice makes the album all the more accessible and not a liability at all.

Chuck: Well, I will tell you, I am glad to hear that. I love to sing.

GB: Not everybody has to sound like Peabo Bryson!

Chuck: But I can't! (Laughs)

GB: From what I have read about you, as far a musical experiences go, the King Curtis R & B Band was your greatest so far. Is that an accurate statement? 

Chuck: I've got three and the reason I talk about these three is that we never had a bad night, or a bad song or a bad gig. Never, not one time! This was with Aretha Franklin and Harry Belafonte. 

GB: Never a fight, or a drunk or an idiot in the band?

Chuck: Well, I'm pretty sure that happened, but strong leaders don't allow that to happen too often. And if you're gonna have an argument it's gonna be with the leader. In Aretha's band over a span of 3 to 4 years, she had 3 band leaders, who we all dealt with. The only thing that we dealt with with Aretha was money, getting paid. So be just basically dealt with whoever the bandleader was. 

Whatever any arguments were, whatever was going, didn't affect the music at all. Harry Belafonte, I would almost say is an extension of King Curtis in that I admire the man so much. He had a top-notch show, the music was incredible and it's on fire. I made a couple of trips to Vegas and Tahoe with Harry and not only was the music incredible, he was a very very nice man. 

A strong leader, like Curtis. He had a lot of fans.

GB: What skills did he show that you admired?

Chuck: Strong as far as he knew exactly what he wanted. He knew exactly what worked and what didn't work. Of course, he had a young band, and the young players are gonna try little different things, that the older guys would have to get used to. For instance, chord playing on the bass. King Curtis didn't particularly know what to do with that. It took him a while for him to get used to me doing that. 

It was something new to him. It also took a while for him to get used to me playing the bass with my fingers. The bass player before me played it with his thumb, he picked it like a pick. It took him a while. But not only was he very strong at what to do and not do, he was very responsible. He would take care of the guys, like Harry did. You always got your money, he was always in your corner like a father. 

GB: Were you able to interpret this skill into how you run your band now?

Chuck: Oh yeah, absolutely. Although I do it my way, I think that I am a strong leader, although not like Harry and King Curtis. Another reason I mentioned these three gigs was that every time we played, it was a packed house.

GB: Nothing feels like that.

Chuck: A very strong band. 

GB: With the level of notoriety you have achieved are you finding the audiences are pretty receptive to you?

Chuck: I find I get a lot of support. Usually the people that come out are already Steeley Dan fans or Quincy fans or Chuck Rainey fans, so they are usually players. Every now and again, there is another side that comes out that are just lay people. So I try then to take advantage of my appearance on stage and how I handle myself. 

GB: As the bandleader, are you also the front guy that talks to the audience, and if so, are you comfortable with that?

Chuck: Uh-huh, that's very easy, because I just do it the way I have been trained by watching other people do it. You know there are a lot of people I have watched while playing on stage. Ray Charles, Taj Mahal, Billy Preston, these are my favorite stage performers, because they have great stage presence. They are able to ad lib and do what they've gotta do. 

GB: It's a skill like any other skill that you develop for your craft.

Chuck: It's the personality too, there are a lot of mundane people out there who have bands. The music is good, but they are mundane. I don't like that mundane thing at all. 

GB: There has to be a passion there

Chuck: And the passion has to show. That's what made Janice Joplin so successful. She was not a singer, and Lena Horne too, not that I say Lena is not a singer, but they are so convicted when they sing, you got into the person.

Even Stevie Nicks, when she left Fleetwood Mack, and you began to look at her bandstand, Stevie puts a whole lot into her songs. I don't like that kind of music, but I would watch her show. It's just right up front and it's believable.

GB: And it's about story telling. People love to be told stories. Even for an instrumental band, people love the story, they will listen. 

Chuck: They sure will.

GB: Did you find moving to 6 string difficult at first?

Chuck: Yes, I did find it difficult. As a matter of fact, it took me roughly 6 to 7 years, well maybe not quite that long, but it took me a long while to be able to take that bass and not have a four string with me. I still have some trouble in reading for the six string, so I do carry the four string with me, `cos that's where I came from. 

GB: Do you tune it conventionally?

Chuck: I tune it in straight fourths. 

GB: Did you ever have to deal with any medical problems with your hands because of the wide necks?

Chuck: With my right hand, yeah. That space from the B up to the high C, that space is bigger, so I did have problems with the muscle going across my thumb, into my wrist. 

GB: Have you managed to solve that problem?

Chuck: Yeah, I really looked at as deep as I possibly could. Even a conventional player playing a four string bass, over a period of time, the muscles get locked. You have to massage those muscles or have another outlet. Basketball is a good one, tennis does a whole lot too because it exercises the 'counter' muscles. 

And too, a lot of people play so much. You can play too much. You can over do anything. It just requires letting a day go by where you don't enact that muscle. Now I find that when I don't play for three days, when I don't touch a bass, now this is really oddàIf I don't touch an instrument, it's almost like starting over. With a four string, it's one thing, but with those two extra strings, it can be frightening. I find myself pulling on the G string, when I am fingering something on the D string. 

Also slapping octaves. Sometimes I get into missing that top string. I am fingering the string but I am not plucking with my right hand. So I have a rule in playing: If you stay with fourths and fifths, you can never be wrong. So if I miss an octave to octave while slapping, if I am going Octave-Five, the fifth still makes it sound okay. 

GB: Overall, do you prefer the six string to the four, for your own personal taste and direction?

Chuck: If I kept on playing just four string basses, I am not gonna come to where I need to be. I need to be playing something with six strings.

GB: That's your goal then, to be completely immersed in 6 string.

Chuck: Well there are some things I still do real well on the four. I play the six string entirely different than I do the four. I approach it differently, I don't play it or handle it the same way I do a four or five. 

GB: With the six string, do you find yourself doing a lot more chordal work?

Chuck: It's a lot easier. A four string bass does everything that a six does, except go down as low, to the Low B. Of course I am able to play more 'songs' with the 6 string because I have more vertical space. 

GB: Did you ever venture into fretless?

Chuck: No I didn't, with a fretted bass, I have a margin of error and a fretless is not forgiving. You have to be perfect! 

GB: When I was looking at your touring schedule, you were very busy during the `60's, `70's the `80 and even the `90's working for other people. Now, with this new decade upon us, are you going to be putting a lot of your energy into the CHUCK RAINEY COALITION? 

Chuck: Absolutely, at this age, now I've been very very blessed, you know. I am in very good health. I've maintained a certain look, I don't look my age at all. What I am trying to do for once in my life, is something that Chuck wants to do. For the rest of my career I am going to be making records and going out on the bandstand with a band. 

GB: Am I safe in saying, at the end of the day, are they gonna have to carry you off the stage?

Chuck: Oh yeah. I have worked with Harvey Mann and David Newman and they are in their 70's and playing very well. 

GB: Have you ever run into what are called 'player haters'. In other words, people who are really competitive with those who are really successful on their instruments?

Chuck: Um-hum. Sure I do. 

GB: Do you find that you have to shut them down or are you gentle with them?

Chuck: I am very gentle with them because they have a big problem. They already have a big problem that I don't need to add to. I handle it very softly. I just go ahead and agree. But people like that, people don't hire `em. 

In my clinics, I talk a little bit about that. There are some Universities that turn out people with attitude. Attitude doesn't get you the gig. A lot of people think that your ability to shut people down and to talk a whole lot, gets you the gig. That's not it at all. People hire people they are comfortable with. 

These are people who never will attain certain highlights in their careers. 

GB: If you are gonna ride along for hours and days in a cramped bus with a person, you have to be able to work with that person, not want to strangle them. 

Chuck: Well, it doesn't last long and the leader usually gets rid of them! 

GB: Now you work with the six string a lot of course and with that mindset already in place, have you been tempted to look at the 7, the 9 string and beyond?

Chuck: I don't really have an interest in going passed six, because it took me long enough to be able to understand and to deal with the six. When it comes to the 7 string, there are two problems with me. 

If that 7th string is an F# below the B it would be difficult to find a figure configuration that could handle that. And then if that string is above the C string, there is no need for it if you are a bass player. When you see someone like Bill Dickens playing the 7 or the 9 string bass, he's just playing by himself and a drummer. 

But if you were to put that sucker in a dance band or a Top 40 band, I don't see what the 7th string is gonna really do. I just don't hear it.

GB: And you have to carry around some monster cabinets and amps!

Chuck: And right now I go out of my way to make sure my gear is small. I stay with the 10's, they are tighter. Also I stay with the 10's that are in a very good cabinet. These past 3 years I have been playing a Trace (Elliot) head and a Bag End cabinet. The Bag End is a 2X10 cabinet. Every now and then, depending on where I play, it grunts a bit. I don't like to 4X10 cabinet because it's heavier, already this 2X10 is heavy! 

I am however getting ready to use a couple of 4X10 Bag End cabinets. I've been around Jim for a long time and he makes one hell of a cabinet. 

When I first started playing, you needed only 40 to 60 watts. But nowadays, music has gotten to a place where even if you don't need the volume, you need the air room. You need a presence, so if your not playing through something that has at least 400 watts, there's no where to go. 

I keep saying amps like the Crown 2000, the Aguilar 2000, those are the amplifiers, the more power you haveàI use a wireless from time to time and when you've got a good powerful amplifier it kinda helps the wireless system. 

GB: When you are dealing with a new student for the first time, what would you say are some of the mistakes these new players are wrestling with?

Chuck: Yeah, they usually want to play something they don't yet have the physical ability to play. Nobody wants to practice. I like dealing with beginners because you can see whether or not they are really interested. 

I've had people come in here wanting to play Les Claypool and they can't even play a major scale. In order to get to that you first have to be able to play this. He wants to play a run (simulates a percussive ascending run with his voice) but he can't physically do it, he doesn't have the muscles built up in his hands! 

GB: Has anyone ever approached you about building a Chuck Rainey Signature Bass?

Chuck: Oh yes, I have a Ken Smith Signature Bass, it's the CR Series. I was with Ken Smith for about 7 years. Mainly, I did not like the look of the bass, I thought it was ugly. But I still think that the BT Ken builds is the best bass on the market, I just don't like the way it looks. 

We are dealing with an instrument that is not like a violin. All violins look alike, whereas when it comes to guitars and basses, it's different. 

Warrior is talking about a Signature Bass, Tradition is talking about a Signature Bass too, but I am involved with JD (Warrior) and it's a high end product. He does not feel that he wants to be involved if I want to do something on the low end. He feels that for my career and what he wants to do with me, I should stay high end. 

GB: Well, perhaps you are worth a lot more than a $300 bass, maybe he feels you are worth that higher road. In 30, 40 or more years from now, if it's a Warrior Bass, odds are there still will be a Chuck Rainey Signature bass out there. But the same might not necessarily be able to be said about a $300 bass. It's a consideration.  Have you ever been asked to do a duet with another bassist? Is it something you would even want to do?

Chuck: That relationship would have to be a special one. Now at NAMM, sometimes you jam with another bass player. That's just jamming and has nothing to do with organized music, but I've been approached by a couple of guys that want to do something. Now being that its their idea, I'll let it be that. 

Basically, I still have this thing around my head about what I am trying to do. But being a working musician I am still always interested in projects. 

It's gotta be music, that whole thing where you have nothing but basses alone, or whatever instrument it is, it gets to be a little unnecessary. I sorta do things that feature everybody. 

I am a musician. I want to play in the rhythm section. 

Bass. 

If it fits a solo, then take a solo, then I want to hear some singing and a sax lead or something like that. 

GB: You grew up as a team player. 

Chuck: I'm a Company Man.

GB: Do you have a favorite memory, or any anecdote that you would like to share.

Chuck: I've got a lot of stories, it's good for musicians to tell stories to find out what happened, what the deal isà but from time to time I tell this storyà

I must have been about 13 or 14. My father let me go to a dance. At the time I was a trumpet player. In the town where I come from, I was sorta 'high up on the hog', I was popular. My sister was a singer. She had an Operatic voice and she did recitals. I did recitals too. 

So me and my partner were going to this dance. It was being held about 4 or 5 blocks from my house. At the dance that night was Hank Ballard and the Midnighters. 

So, about a block from the dance hall, every time I think about this, this was the first time I had ever heard a bass in organized music. When I first started playing professionally, you didn't hear the bass, on the radio or the television.

So as I got closer to the gig, I heard the high hat and I heard this bass line. Until then I had never heard the bass, unless it was a tuba. The closer I got, I started to pick up the back beat on the snare.

So I went in and I remember looking at the stage and seeing two guitarists. This was 1953 or 54, and um, it was two guitar. One guitar was HUGE. The guy who was playing that guitar was a short and thin guy and he wore the bass down around his knees. I was so impressed at that moment. Looking and finally figuring out that what I was hearing was coming out of this guitar. 

So now, years went byàI went to college, to the Army and blah, blah, blah. I eventually went to New York. This was around 1963, maybe 9 or 10 years later. I was a popular musician in town, everybody was looking for musicians. I was living in an area where musicians lived.

Etta James Band needed a bass player. They were going to get ready to go out to do some gigs. I said, "Whoa, great. I would love to do it, but my bass is in the PawnShop. Somebody is gonna have to give me some money." So the guy said, "No problem, we've got a bass and we've got an amp.". So I said, "Well, that's cool".

So for a year, I played this Ampeg amplifier and this Fender Bass. It so happened that we went to do a gig in Cincinnati, Ohio. At that time, Etta James was a heroin junkie. She was not doing too well, but she still doing gigs. She is doing well now, but at that time, she had problems. 

So the band drove from New York to Cincinnati and we got there maybe two days ahead of time. Etta ended up canceling the gig and going to Chicago. So the band was left in Cincinnati owing two, three days rent and we hadn't made any money. 

So we slipped out of the hotel, and went to Chicago. About 6 months later, we came back to Cincinnati to make up the gig she had missed. So of course, we chose another hotel. 

They let us do the 3-day gig. At the end of the gig, The Law was there, they had got it all together. We had skipped out and so the whole band ended up spending the night in jail, until we got the bill paid. 

We just made a phone call to Chicago, and they straightened it out. But while we are in the can, we are sitting there, just talkingà`cos we knew we are gonna be there the night, so we are just sitting up in the cell talking. We start talking about The Old Days. 

Now Hank Ballard and the Midnighters had been another band called The Upsetters in the late 40's and early 50's. They were a showband. After Hank Ballard, Etta James also used The Upsetters, because they were a showband and helped her deal.

I knew this, but it didn't dawn on me till then, what was really going on. So we were sitting there talking. They knew I was from Ohio, from Youngstown, and they started naming people and started naming spots. Now these guys are a little older than me, and they said they had been to Youngstown all the time. They said that they would come to Youngstown as Hank Ballard's band and Etta James' band and so on. 

I said, "You know the first time I saw a Fender bass was with a band that had on clown uniforms, and it was Hank Ballard and the Midnighters." The trumpet player turned to me and said, "and that's the bass you're playing'. 

He said the bass belonged to a bassist that died in a fire in Houston. They were playing with Etta James and the hotel he was in had a problem. He died in the fire. He had no kin, no relations, so they kept his bass and his amp. That was how they had it. 

So without even knowing it, I had been playing for a year, the first electric bass that I ever saw when I was a young kid.

To me, this was incredible that this could happen to me. To me that shows that I was destined to do what I did.

Every time I tell that story, what little hair I have on the back of my neck, stands up!

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