Few faces within the bass world are as instantly recognisable as session great Lee Sklar. Aside from being a gun for hire, Lee is probably best known for his longstanding work alongside Phil Collins and James Taylor, but unlike so many bassists, it’s impossible to label the one kind of music that he gets called for. “When I got into the studio scene, I found myself getting all kinds of calls,” Lee told BP. “One minute I’m doing Helen Reddy’s I Am Woman, and the next thing I know I’m doing Spectrum with Billy Cobham. The call’s would come in and I’d look at everything as a challenge.”
After 50 years in the industry, having seen recording technology bloom from the days when a four track was state of the art, how have things changed for Lee? “Firstly, I’m all in favour of technology – I don’t want to be living in the stone age – but with Pro-Tools and such like, you’ve got singers that can’t sing to save their lives and engineers whose whole careers are spent tuning bad singers. You’ve got a drummer with no time, so you move the beat. As far as I’m concerned if the drummer doesn’t swing, fire him – let him serve French fries in McDonald’s, but don’t let him get in a studio.”
