Victor Wooten says he has lots of bass heroes, and he has just as many bass guitars, so it’s fitting that one of his most prized possessions is a bass he got from a player he grew up idolizing.
The journeyman bassist and multiple Grammy winner has long since established himself as one of the best bassists in the world. He's worked with everyone from Bootsy Collins to Cory Wong, Marcus Miller, and Tommy Emmanuel, but he still looks up to those who inspired him to start playing in the first place. One man sits atop the rest: Stanley Clarke.
“Part of my, I don't know what the word is, infatuation with Stanley is that I got to meet him when I was nine,” Wooten tells Reverb. “I had this booklet with bios and photos [of bass players], and Stanley took my booklet, wrote an address on it, and said, ‘Send me a letter here, and I'll send you something.’ And I did, and he did that. It solidified that he was my idol.”
Late in life, he'd form a ground-rumbling trio with Clarke and Marcus Miller, releasing the album Thunder as SMV in 2008. That shows how far Wooten has come. Then came something even more unexpected.
When a friend called him to say that Clarke was selling some of his gear, he couldn’t believe it. His eyes lit up.
“I called Stanley, and I made some small small talk,” Wooten remembers. “I didn't want to say, ‘What are you selling?’ I couldn't go straight there, but finally I said it, and he said, ‘Well, I've got the Alembic I played School Days on,' and I just knew I had to have it.”
Clarke's signature Alembic was introduced in the 1980s and featured a 30.75-inch scale, 24 frets, and an active circuit by Ron Wickersham. But it was part of a huge fire sale as Clarke looked to clear house. Wooten was in luck.
“It has ‘S.C’ inlaid in the bottom below the bridge, and he actually signed it for me on the back of the headstock,” he smiles. “That's the most magical bass.”
Then things got expensive.
“I found out he was selling an upright bass,” he adds. “It's a 5/8 size, which is a small size. I really needed an upright. He said that it's from the 1700s, and I found out what he was selling for is way out of my range. But when I went to my wife, Holly, with puppy dog tears, she said, ‘You have to have those basses.’ I married the right person!”
Clarke's decision to sell a substantial portion of his guitar collection came as a surprise, but he told Bass Player he had his reasons.
More recently, Wooten has been telling Bass Player what it takes to get to the top of bass mountain. It's a journey he has to take all over again after a recent health condition has turned him back into a beginner.
