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Colin Hodgkinson is one of the best-kept bass secrets of the world. Mikael Jansson
tracked down the fugitive four-stringer
If you wish to see and hear Colin Hodgkinson play today, check out the small blues/R&B
clubs in England, or, better still, Germany - most of his recent CDs have been released
on a small audiophile label there. This 53-year-old bass ace may be (shamefully) unknown
by most younger players, but those who have heard him are known to have had problems
shutting their mouths for days afterwards.
His former musical partner, the late Brit Blues pioneer Alexis Korner used to introduce
him as 'Frivolous Fancy Fingers'! (Korner did have a knack for finding brilliant and
original bass talent; Jack Bruce, Danny Thompson and Andy Fraser, to mention a few).
Jonas Hellborg, too, cites Hodgkinson as the main influence behind his extraordinary
solo bass excursions.
In 1972, a strange trio named Back Door released a self-produced album on a small Yorkshire
label, financed by a local pub owner... Eventually, that album found its way down to
London and hit the music business like a ton of bricks. Reviews brimmed with superlatives;
one claimed that Hodgkinson "...took the electric bass from the Model T stage
to the Jaguar XKE stage"! All of a sudden Hodgkinson topped bass polls side-by-side
with the likes of Stanley Clarke and Jaco Pastorius.
Back Door, with Tony Hicks on drums, Ron Aspery saxes and flute, and Hodgkinson on
lead bass, rhythm bass and, indeed, 'bass' bass (simultaneously), played a kind of
'light fusion' - in the positive sense of the word. Light, as in airy, with plenty
of space, with lots of interaction and communication between players, as opposed to
the overkill 100mph jazzrock shred orgies that were all too common back then among
the technique-heads (and still are today). This was more like a fusion between Robert
Johnson and Ornette Coleman, with a healthy dash of Monty Python for good measure.
The debut album was soon re-released by Warner Bros, followed by 8th Street Nites (produced
by Mountain bassist Felix Pappalardi), Another Fine Mess and Activate, the latter produced
by ELP drummer Carl Palmer, a result of Back Door opening for an ELP tour in the 70s.
Lack of financial success eventually dissolved the band though, in spite of all the
good reviews.
(Bio taken from the website of "Guitarist") |
