MUSIC HISTORY 101 OCTOBER 14, 1945 - Born on this day in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, Enland: Former Whitesnake bassist COLIN HODGKINSON Hodgkinsons first band was the Dynatones from 1959 to 1964, who were on the same bill as the Beatles at the Embassy Cinema, Peterborough on the March 17, 1963, but he turned professional in 1966, with Backdoor, the resident band at the Stilton Country club. In 1968 after working a house band in Monrovia, Liberia for 6 months, he moved to Redcar to work at the Starlite club where he met Ronnie Aspery who got him into the Eric Delaney band where he ramained for 10 months. During a long summer season with the group, he became bored with the music and started to write original material with Aspery in the afternoons, recording this on a little Grundig tape machine. After leaving the Eric Delaney band he moved to London where Ron picked up a lot of session work and he got a call from Alexis Korner. They decided that although things were looking up for them, they wanted to give Backdoor a chance, so it was back to Redcar, writing originals during the day and playing the nightclub every night from 9pm until 2am. A former bass player, future Rolling Stone Brian Jones used to come and listen to them and liked the band. He’d just taken a pub in the remotest part of the North Yorkshire moors, the Lion Inn, Blakey Ridge. He said they could do a residency on Tuesday nights, and play their own music. They built up an incredible following, but after being turned down for a record deal by all the major labels, Brian financed an album that was recorded in 8 hours and mixed in 4 in a little 4 track studio in Denmark Street in London’s Tin Pan Alley. A copy found its way to the NME and got an amazing review, another copy was given to Pete King who managed Ronnie Scott’s club and he invited them to open for Chick Corea for 2 weeks. It was so successful that they played for 3 weeks and signed a deal with Warner Bros. During the next few years, the band toured all over the USA and Europe but despite great reviews, didn’t sell enough albums, and folded in 1975. When Backdoor finished Hodgkinson didn’t know what he wanted to do for a while. Nothing much was happening musically, but then he got a call from Mahavishnu Orchestra keyboardist Jan Hammer. Rick Laird, the bassist, had played some of Backdoor’s music to them and they all liked it. Hodgkinson met Jan briefly in 1975 at the Berlin jazz festival and talked about playing together and Hammer called him in 1978 asked him to join him, desiring to play something much more in the rock mold. In October 1978, he flew out to New York and spent most of the next 3 years playing with Hammer. In 1981 they recorded an album with guitarist Neal Schon (Santana, Journey) but as with Backdoor, they had no real commercial success. In 1982 Hammer was asked to write the music for “Miami Vice” which became a huge hit worldwide. Between 1979 and 1982, Hodgkinson was involved in a duo with Alexis Korner, mostly working in Germany, but Alexis had a weekly radio show on the BBC loved by musicians everywhere and he wanted to devote more time to this and stop touring so much. So Hodgkinson went out in an all-star R&B band in 1982 and met Deep Purple’s keyboard player Jon Lord for the first time. Through Lord, Hodgkinson joined Whitesnake. He had known David Coverdale and Micky Moody in the Redcar days back in the late 1960’s and was keen to play with the band but it didn’t really work out so he dropped out in 1983 and hooked back up with Corner, but on New Year’s Day 1984, Alexis died at age 55. He’d gone into hospital while the two were recording a new album and died very soon afterwards. Then Pete York (drummer with the original Spencer Davis group) called Hodgkinson asking if him to do a tour with Spencer Davis. That was 1984 and he worked with him on and off until Spencer was taken ill 2010 In 1984 he also got a call to fly out to Compass Point in Nassau to play on Mick Jagger’s first solo album. He was re-united with Jan Hammer and also played for the first time with Jeff Beck. Throughout the 80’s and 90’s Hodgkinson did a lot of the R&B Allstars type tours with amongst others Chris Farlowe, Miller Anderson, Brian Auger, Tony Ashton, Jon Lord, Pete York, Spencer Davis, Zoot Money etc. On a session in Munich in 1986, he met a Berlin guitarist called Frank Diez and they had an instant rapport musically, so they played some duo dates. They released several CDs. Frank was a member of Peter Maffay’s band. Peter was a hugely popular German singer, with a great voice who was equally at home with rock songs or Ballads. He’s been likened to Bruce Springsteen and he certainly has both tremendous energy and is very charismatic. In 1990, his band had a project of their own and wanted to take a year out, so Hodgkinson was invited to his studio along with a couple of other new musicians to see if they could play together. It worked out really well and he joined the band, recording and playing huge arenas all over Germany, staying with him for over 3 years until 1994. For the next few years it was more of the Duo, Spencer Davis etc., but at the end of the ‘90’s he got a call from Bill Wyman, whom hed first met in 1984 at the Montreux jazz Festival. Wyman had formed a band called The Rhythm Kings and asked Hodgkinson to open for them with a 30 minute solo bass set. It worked really well and then he had a call from Gary Moore’s manager asking him to do the same thing. Returning to Backdoor, at the end of the 1990’s they decided as all the albums they’d made were out of print that they’d like to make a new CD with the best of the old tunes plus some brand new ones. Apart from a brief re-union tour in 1986, they hadn’t played together since the band broke up. They released an LP on the Blakey Cult label entitled Askin’ the Way (which came out in 2003). Ron’s health was not good and sadly, he died in September 1986. Hodkinson thought that was the end of the band but Tony had played with a saxophonist from the North-east who was a fan of the band and said he knew all the tunes. Rod Mason was a really big guy nicknamed The Room Darkener. They played some shows and then Tony had to return to Australia, his home for quite a few years. He intended to go back for a few months, but it was not to be, not long afterwards he died too after a short illness. In 1998, the German Inakustik label released Hodgkinsons debut solo album The Bottom Line, but it sold poorly. After a while, Hodgkinson spoke to Rod and they decided that since theyd both written new tunes for the band, they should record them. Paul Robinson, who’d spent the past fifteen years playing with Nina Simone, was really keen to get involved. The LP came out the following year entitled Colin Hodgkinson’s Back Door Too and they played a few shows together. In 2003 Hodgkinson went out on tour with singer Long John Baldry, whose touring roster included Zoot Money, Colin Allen, Ronnie Johnson and Gary Foot. In 2006, Hodgkinson got involved with a new project, BBQ (the British Blues Quintet), fronted by Maggie Bell who after quite a long time away from the business wanted to come back. In 2006, Hogkinson went up to Middlesbrough for the memorial service of his old pal Tony Hicks. Like Ron Aspery he’d died tragically young, only 57 and Hodgkinson had been devastated to lose two people with whom he’d shared some of the best times of his life, musically and personally. At the service, he met Mark Rea, Chris Rea’s brother who told him that Chris wanted him to get in touch. He went down to his studio for a play and it sounded good, he wanted to make a CD of 50’s and 60’s style instrumentals. They ended up making 3 CD’s together in 2007 and was then offered a tour in 2008. Maggie and the band very kindly let Hodgkinson put a replacement bass-player in for the 7 or 8 shows he’d miss so he went out at the end of January on a tour that would take me to places hed never been before like Moscow, St. Petersburg, the Baltic states, all over eastern Europe plus the west and the UK. Afterwards, he returned to BBQ. READ MORE: colinhodgkinson.co.uk/ allmusic/artist/colin-hodgkinson-mn0000094970/biography oocities.org/sunsetstrip/Palladium/9932/chodg_b.htm oldies/artist-biography/Whitesnake.html progarchives/artist.asp?id=5095 notreble/buzz/2012/11/04/underrated-bassist-an-interview-with-colin-hodgkinson/ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_Door_%28jazz_trio%29
Posted on: Tue, 14 Oct 2014 19:44:25 +0000
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