My father, Laurence Canty, who has died aged 74, was a bass guitarist who became a bass guitar teacher, both as a lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London, and as a private tutor in his north London flat, where he instructed future talents including Colin Greenwood, the bass player of Radiohead, and Yolanda Charles, who has played with musicians such as Paul Weller and Mick Jagger.
He also wrote an instructional book, Electric Bass Guitar – A Complete Guide (1978), which many bassists around the world, including George Anderson of Shakatak and Dave Swift of Jools Holland’s Rhythm and Blues Orchestra, have acknowledged as an influence on their playing.
Laurence was born in Hampstead, north London, the eldest of the five children of Bill, a birth, deaths and marriages registrar for Camden council, and Patricia (nee Mann), a teaching assistant. He developed his love of the bass as a teenager, playing along to early Shadows hits on his parents’ gramophone.
After Finchley grammar school he studied economics at Lancaster University (1967 to 1970), and there founded a progressive rock band called Undercarriage with his fellow students Andrew Fry and Del Slade – the group eventually relocated to London, playing live gigs until folding in 1975. After that he went on to perform with a number of live-oriented outfits, including Homer’s Odyssey, a calypso band, and Zodiac, a successful functions band with London residencies at the Lyceum and the Hammersmith Palais.
He also regularly played in the pit band for musical theatre productions – though never for long, as he preferred the freedom that jazz music offered him.
In 1976 he took over as bass guitar lecturer at Goldsmiths from his friend the jazz bassist Mo Foster, and he led the course for the next 20 years while also teaching privately in Muswell Hill. Greenwood’s bass line on Airbag, the first track of Radiohead’s OK Computer album, was the result of a lesson on chord theory with Laurence.
In addition to his instructional book, in 1998 Laurence co-wrote What Bass with Tony Bacon, a guide to buying and maintaining a bass guitar. From the late 1980s to the late 90s he also crafted a monthly column, Bass Case, for the magazine Making Music.
In 1996 he ended his London commitments so he could go back to living permanently in Lancaster. There he formed the Latin jazz band Quay Change with Fred Binley and Amy Worth, and entertained audiences across the north-west of England for 20 years until a combination of Lewy Body dementia and Parkinson’s disease prevented him from playing.
He first met my mother, Jean Harrison, while they were both studying in Lancaster, although they did not get together until the mid-80s. They never married, and separated in the late 90s, but remained friends. We survive him, as do his siblings, Ruth, Paul, Mark and Philip.
