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I'm fortunate to have come from a musical family.  My Uncle Shel Rott promoted The Fab Four when he worked at Capitol in '64.  He AR'd for Motown too and wrote a tune that was the basis for the Four Tops hit "Standing In The Shadows of Love".  He lost copyright in his lawsuit with Barry Gordy.  Shel led his own orchestra in Detroit with wife and Decca artist Vickie Carroll.  His partner, Richard Drapkin (Ricky Dee) penned "Devil in her Heart" sung by George Harrison on the Beatles 2nd LP "With The Beatles".  My mother played classical piano, father played sax and my brother (a fine musician) plays piano & guitar.  Steven Rott taught me the blues, my 1-4-5.  A 1st cousin, Kirk Reznik co-founded the influential band The Phunk Junkeez.  A 2nd cousin, Sharon Reznik went to Julliard then worked with Gil Evans in NYC.  In the 40's, my Uncle Max Rott owned a joint  in Detroit called The Royal Blue bar.  He was a patron of local jazz and R&B musicians.  My son is a music critic and runs the popular and much-quoted site Hip Hop Is Read.

A rarity: from a roll of my Uncle Shel's stickers, plastered all over the US in 1964 prior to the Beatles arrival stateside:

I began playing by listening to a ton of vinyl at an early age.  The Beatles, Louis Armstrong, Bernstein, Bacharach, Bach & Brubeck, Hendrix, Wes Montgomery, Miles, Mingus, Monk & Bird.  Charlie Parker dug Country Western & Duke Ellington said "there are two kinds of music....good music, and the other kind".  I was exposed to all this great music at an early age and I thank my family for their good taste!  Also, growing up in the Motor City was tremendous.  All this music floating in the air shaped my development, style and palette as did 2 bassists in particular, James Jamerson and Paul McCartney.

My first instrument was cello. I moved to upright then electric bass.  My first semi-pro gigs were in the orchestra pit doing musicals such as "Company" & "Follies".  In the 80's I played in LA’s popular and eclectic pop band, “Doll Congress” co-founded by Michael Penn & Gabriele Morgan w/band mates Patrick Warren (Hugh Laurie, Fiona Apple, Liz Phair and a ton of artists) and Raphael Gayol (Leonard Cohen and others).

Currently I do freelance work.

Some of the people I've recorded with or shared the stage:

Tony Berg (Wallflowers, Michael Penn) / David Brighton / Jon Brion / Ryan Brown /

Clem Burke (Blondie) / Tom Davis (Producer, Engineer) / Ty Dennis (Ray Manzarek & Robbie Krieger) /