Pino Palladino (17 October 1957 in Cardiff, Wales, UK) is a Welsh bass guitarist of Italian ancestry. Palladino rose to public notice playing primarily rock and roll, blues rock, and rhythm and blues music, although he has been lauded for his ability to play most genres of popular music, including jazz, neo soul, and funk. Adding to his eclectic grasp and melodic approach on his instrument, he has become one of the most sought-after session players on the bass in the music industry. He has played on a large number of recordings by some of the world's most successful entertainers, in part, by mastering a variety of techniques on both his late 1970s fretless Music Man StingRay bass guitar and later in his career, adding fretted Fender Precision and Jaguar basses. His playing has earned him custom instruments bearing his name.
Palladino has joined several bands and ensembles through which he is most visible. He joined jazz trumpeter Roy Hargrove in forming The RH Factor, a band that mixes elements of soul, jazz, and R&B. He is a member of the John Mayer Trio, and was the first choice by Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey to fill the position left by John Entwistle as the current bassist for The Who.
Biography
Palladino began playing the electric guitar at age 14. By age 17 he decided to play the bass guitar, and bought his first fretless bass one year later, playing mostly R&B, funk, and reggae within a rock and roll backbeat. His first professional gig was at a local television station in Cardiff, where he began playing in 1978. That same year, at age 20, he joined Jools Holland's band and recorded with Holland on his album entitled, Jools Holland and His Millionaires. Palladino toured with Jools to support the album, which gave him the opportunity to purchase his own Music Man StingRay Fretless Bass.[2] Holland was touring with another new band; the Q-Tips, whose frontman, Paul Young made acquaintance with Palladino whilst they were on tour, who would, a year later offer Pino a place in his own backing band.
Pino Palladino was featured on Gary Numan's 1982 album I, Assassin, in which his fretless bass sound made a prominent contribution to the overall sound of the album. He went on to play fretless bass with a healthy number of high-profile artists that include (on the short list), David Gilmour, Tears for Fears, Pete Townshend, Peter Gabriel, Joan Armatrading, Phil Collins, Chaka Khan and Don Henley.
After vocalist Paul Young landed his own solo contract, Palladino was brought in as part of his backing band "The Royal Family" in 1983 with noticeable chart success with the No Parlez album, and major hit singles both in the UK and Europe. Examples of Young's new found success were the band's cover of the Marvin Gaye classic "Wherever I Lay My Hat (That's My Home)", which reached No. 1 in the UK singles chart for three weeks in the summer of 1983, and "Love of the Common People". Palladino toured extensively at this time with Paul Young, remaining in the band for five years. 1983 additionally proved to be the year of another ensemble featuring Palladino, Paul Rodgers (formerly of Bad Company, drummer Kenney Jones, along with a rotating cast of other celebrity performers. The band only released one album through Atlantic; The Law, although there were enough out-takes that another bootleg-styled album followed in 1991. Sales were unremarkable, despite the names of those who recorded on the album.
Throughout the 1980s Palladino was noted for his R&B roots on the fretless bass, even when supporting pop and rock heavy performers. One reviewer from Bass Player magazine points to Paul Young’s cover of the Bobby Womack/Rufus tune "Stop On By" (on 1990’s Other Voices), with its "pre-hip-hop, swung funk groove" as the precursor to Palladino's later neo-soul focus.
1990s
Changes in instrument
In the 1990s, Palladino began to alternate between the sounds achieved in playing the fretless bass to one with frets, as well as the 4-string and 6-string bass. At the time, he was well known within the industry for his fretless bass sound. However, now, depending on which artist he was supporting, and the song to be played, he began gravitating towards fretted bass. He was maturing as a musician, and played with artists as diverse as Melissa Etheridge, Richard Wright, Sir Elton John and Eric Clapton. Also in 1991 he joined Paul Rodgers (of Free, Queen+ Paul Rodgers, and Bad Company fame) to form the band The Law. In the mid 1990's, Palladino played bass for The London Metropolitan orchestra during their recording of "An American Symphony", soundtrack for the movie Mr Hollands Opus.
Palladino supported Phil Collins, as a member of the house band for the Golden Jubilee of Elizabeth II, which played with Sir Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, Cliff Richard, and Tony Bennett, among other notable performers. He later wrote that he felt privileged to have been amongst the others on stage in such an event.
