Colin Hodgkinson, bass guitarist and Glintonian

By Andrew Warn

Your deputy editor was walking down Glinton High Street one day last July, when he came upon the ever-serene Colin Hodgkinson. Asked how he was, Colin came out with the unforgettable line; “OK thanks, I’ve just got back from Thailand, playing bass with the British Rhythm & Blues All Stars. We were on the same bill as the Jools Holland Big Band. It was a good gig, I’m a bit knackered, but after all I am 60 this year.”

Colin Hodgkinson

Follow that! One of our own, still playing bass guitar with some of the greatest bands around, 43 years down the road from that 1963 gig at the Embassy in Peterborough, when Colin was playing with the Dynatones, on the same bill as the Beatles, Del Shannon, and Chris Montez.
Anyway, herewith a potted musical biography of this most amiable and quietly-famous Glinton man, largely in his own words:
“The defining musical moment in my life was in 1956, when I saw the movie “Rock around the Clock” with Bill Haley and the Comets. I was so blown away by the music, that I went back to see the movie at least seven times, and decided then that I wanted to be a musician.
“In 1962 I bought my Fender Precision bass guitar. It was hugely expensive at the time, but I still have it, many colours later, and with a new fingerboard, and having had seven refrets – a bit like Trigger’s broom in ‘Only Fools and Horses’ I guess.
“I turned professional in 1966, my first big break was when I joined Alexis Korner. He was a lovely bloke, taught me as much about life as about music. I played with him in big bands and small groups, finally as a duo until Alexis died in 1984.
“I toured all over Europe and America with the trio ‘Back Door,’ and made music for a time in New York with the talented Jan Hammer. A name probably not that well known, but he did write the music for Miami Vice.
“I have recorded with a few ‘names,’ among them Mick Jagger, Jan Hammer, Jeff Beck, James Young, Neal Schon (ex-Santana), and Alexis Korner. I played with Whitesnake for a year or so, and I’ve done more studio sessions than I can remember.
“The 90′s were mostly spent playing in Germany. That was fun – one night the band would be playing in the Hokenhiem Stadium to a crowd of 130,000, then the next night we might be playing a duo in some little blues club in the Black Forest.
“I started playing solo in the 90′s. I had always thought the bass could be developed as a virtuoso instrument, even though it only has four strings. Bill Wyman, the ex-Rolling Stones bass guitarist clearly agrees, in 1999 he invited me to do a solo bass set as opening act on his UK tour with his band ‘The Rhythm Kings.’
“Four of us, two guitarists and two bass players, had a glorious millennium project. We celebrated the 250th birthday of J S Bach by performing a programme of his music in the very church in Eisenach, Germany, where J S, and many others of the Bach family, had been organists. An awesome gig, particularly so, when one is playing the viola part on a bass guitar, but it all worked very well.
“I’ve been very fortunate in my career to play with so many talented musicians, and I’ve played so many styles that I have never focused on any particular one, although the blues is still my favourite kind of music.
“And so the playing and writing goes on, blessed are they who get paid for doing what they love most.”

Ed’s note: Some years ago Colin’s band was playing in a pub not a million miles away, when a car crashed through the pub wall and finished up in the bar. Colin tells me that one of his musical colleagues phoned him and congratulated him on bringing the house down!