{"id":1744,"date":"2024-06-06T11:48:13","date_gmt":"2024-06-06T11:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.laney.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1744"},"modified":"2026-01-21T09:21:39","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T09:21:39","slug":"nathan-east-plays-laney-digbeth-bass-amps-heres-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.laney.co.uk\/blog\/nathan-east-plays-laney-digbeth-bass-amps-heres-why\/","title":{"rendered":"Nathan East Plays Laney DIGBETH Bass Amps – Here’s why…"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’re proud to call Nathan East a Laney artist, and proud to say this iconic bass player is part of the Laney Amplification family, choosing the Laney Digbeth Bass Amplifiers<\/strong><\/a> as part of his full-time touring rig. So today, we’re providing a brief musical history of this iconic bass player, that we can almost guarantee features in your own record collection!<\/p>\n

Nathan East: A Brief Musical History<\/h3>\n

Nathan East started life in Philadelphia, USA, but grew up in San Diego where he quickly found an interest in music, initially learning and playing the cello before developing an interest in Bass Guitar aged fourteen. Starting on a short scale bass before moving to a Fender Jazz in 1971, on this instrument he joined local San Diego group \u2018Power\u2019 who were the house band for a Stax Revue. In 1973 the Power were the house band, on the bill that day was a certain Barry White, where upon hearing Power, he hired them to be his band for a US national tour, and in this moment, at a mere 18 years old, Nathan East became the youngest member of Barry White\u2019s legendary \u2018Love Unlimited Orchestra\u2019.<\/p>\n

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After the tour, Nathan enrolled at the University of California in San Diego where in his third year he majored in music and studied classical upright bass. Still in hot demand, merely weeks before graduating he was called by guitarist John McLaughlin to get to New York to start a tour.<\/p>\n

Nathan turned him down after promising his grandmother he would graduate; he had started his master\u2019s when his lecturer and mentor at the university Bertram Turetzky told him it was time to get to Los Angeles and continue work. He moved to LA in 1979.<\/p>\n

Bass Player For The World’s Biggest Artists<\/h3>\n

Over the following 18 months Nathan embarked on multiple session work before getting contacted by arranger and producer Gene Page who remembered him from his work and time with Barry White, Page booked him for a Hertz commercial as his skill on bass along with his ability to read music shone brightly. Before long he was one of the most in demand musicians in the city, getting booked by the top producers, working on sessions for Dionne Warwick, The Jacksons and Jonnie Mathis to name a few.<\/p>\n

Nathan played on the debut records from Madonna and Whitney Houston and met Quincy Jones along the way who started booking him and recommending him for live dates with the likes of Jeff Porcaro, Abe Laboriel and Patrice Rushden.<\/p>\n

The future brought gold records and number one hits working with icons like Lionel Ritchie and Kenny Loggins but the biggest came when his friend Phillip Bailey (Earth, Wind & Fire) recommended him to Phil Collins, the rest they say is history, the last day in the studio with Phil they wrote the global hit \u2018Easy Lover\u2019 in a reported 20 minutes! The sky was the limit and through Phil Collins Nathan met The Rolling Stones, The Who, Sir Paul McCartney, Sting, Mark Knopfler, Elton John and Eric Clapton. Nathan and Eric formed a solid bond and after playing on \u2018August\u2019 he became a permanent member of Clapton\u2019s band.<\/p>\n

Grammy Awards, Gold and Platinum records didn\u2019t slow Nathan down when it came to expanding his musical chops, with his band \u2018Fourplay\u2019 they have continued to push the contemporary jazz boundaries, the proof of this happened when their debut record sold half a million copies and topped the chart for six months.<\/p>\n

Further Grammy awards for his work with Daft Punk on global smash hit \u2018Get Lucky\u2019 further cemented his status as the<\/em> guy when it comes to bass playing.<\/p>\n