Pino Palladino Nu Soul/Hip Hop Discography

[Randy Newton]

Voodoo by D'Angelo (2000)
.Playa Playa
.Send It On
.Chicken Grease
.One Mo'Gin
.Feel Like Makin' Love

Mama's Gun by Erykah Badu (2000)
.Penitentiary Philosophy
.Cleva
.A.D.2000
.Green Eyes

Like Water For Chocolate by Common (2000)
.Geto Heaven Part Two (feat.D'Angelo)

Art Official Intelligence:Mosaic Thump by De La Soul (2000)
.All Good? (feat.Chaka Khan)

Bamboozled Soundtrack with Erykah Badu (2000)
.Hollywood

Aijuswanaseing(I Just Wanna Sing) by Musiq Soulchild (2000)
.You Be Alright

First Born Second by Bilal (2001)
.Sometimes

Everybody Got Their Something by Nikka Costa (2001)
.So Have I For You
.Hope It Felt Good
.Some Kind Of Beautiful
.Just Because

Fight To Win by Femi Kuti (2001)
.Do Your Best (feat.Mos Def)
.Walk On The Right Side
.Fight To Win (feat.Jaguar Wright)
.Missing Link (feat.Common)

Electric Circus by Common (2002)
.Soul Power
.Aquarius (feat.Bilal & Erykah Badu)
.Between Me,You & Liberation (feat.Cee-Lo)
.I Am Music (feat.Jill Scott)
.Jimi Was a Rock Star (feat.Erykah Badu)
.Heaven Somewhere (feat.Omar,Cee Lo,Bilal,J.Scott,MJ Blige,E.Badu and Lonnie Lynn)

Quality by Talib Kweli (2002)
.Talk To You (Lil' Darlin') (feat.Bilal)

Denials Delusions and Decisions by Jaguar Wright (2002)
.Love Need And Want You
.Lineage

Red Hot + Riot: The Music and Spirit of Fela Kuti by Femi Kuti, D'Angelo, Macy Gray and The Soultronics (2002)
.Water No Get Enemy (feat.Nile Rodgers,Roy Hargove and Positive Force)

Floetic by Floetry (2002)
.Getting late
.Hey You

A Love Story by Vivian Green (2002)
.Wishful Thinking
.What Is Love?
.Affected
.Ain't Nothnig But Love
.Complete
.Keep On Going

How Do You Call It by Patrice (2002)
.Sneakers
.How Do You Call It
.Head To Toe
.Yes Or No
.Music
.Thought I Knew
.Seasons

Hard Groove by The RH Factor (2003)
.Hardgroove
.I'll Stay (feat.D'Angelo)
.Pastor "T"
.The Joint
.Forget Regret (feat.Stephanie McKay)
.How I Know (feat.Shelby Johnson)
.The Stroke

Comin' From Where I'm From by Anthony Hamilton (2003)
.I Tried

Gold Coast by Rhian Benson (2003)
.Words Hurt Too
.Say How I Feel
.Shake It Away
.Sing To The Child
.A Moment In Shrine
.Spirit

International Affairs by Vikter Duplaix (2003)
.Desperately
.Can We Be Lovers (not on US version)

Beautifully Human Words & Sounds Vol.2 by Jill Scott (2004)
.Can't Explain
.I Keep

Strenght [EP] by The RH Factor (2004)
.Rich Man's Welfare
.Listen Here


A Change Is Gonna Come by Leela James (2005)
.My Joy

Ain't Nobody Worryin' by Anthony Hamilton (2005)
.Change Your World

Bold and Beautiful by Vikter Duplaix (2006)
.Stimulations
.Another Great Love Gone By


Sing (If You Want It) by Omar (2006)
.Get It Together

Interpretations:Celebrating The Music Of Earth,Wind And Fire with Bilal and The Randy Watson Experience(2007)
.Can't Hide Love



...

[ElMon]

Thanks!!!!!

[noahw1]

Great list. Thanks.
I didn't know he played with Femi Kuti.

[Lichtaffen]

Thanks for the list. Now can you redo it with the bass of choice listed for each song?

Kidding.

[BobaMosfett]

Thanks! Great list!

A few additions:
An album called Interpretations: Celebrating the Music of Earth, Wind & Fire, has a track by Bilal; Can't hide love, with Pino.

On Strength by The RH Factor he's also on Listen Here.

Plus there's a Dutch soul artist called Alain Clark. His latest cd (Colorblind) has Pino all over it, save for 3 or 4 tracks.

[Randy Newton]

Originally Posted by BobaMosfett

Thanks! Great list!

A few additions:
An album called Interpretations: Celebrating the Music of Earth, Wind & Fire, has a track by Bilal; Can't hide love, with Pino.

On Strength by The RH Factor he's also on Listen Here.

Plus there's a Dutch soul artist called Alain Clark. His latest cd (Colorblind) has Pino all over it, save for 3 or 4 tracks.

Thanks i've edited the list
Could you give me the names of the tracks for Color Blind please?
I've only listened to Love Is Everywhere and the bass is hot

[BobaMosfett]

OK, here's the Alain Clark tracks with Pino:

Wonderful Day
Love is Everywhere
Good Days
For Freedom
Leave Her
Rich
Blame it on Me
I Saw You Again
Easy
Slowly Forget You

It's nice to know there are more rabid Pino fans!

[Randy Newton]

Originally Posted by BobaMosfett

OK, here's the Alain Clark tracks with Pino:

Wonderful Day
Love is Everywhere
Good Days
For Freedom
Leave Her
Rich
Blame it on Me
I Saw You Again
Easy
Slowly Forget You

It's nice to know there are more rabid Pino fans!

Thanks I've been following him since '89

[Ezbass]

Originally Posted by BobaMosfett

A few additions:
An album called Interpretations: Celebrating the Music of Earth, Wind & Fire, has a track by Bilal; Can't hide love, with Pino.

Ooh Pino is really rocking those flatwounds on this one (Spotify is your friend), thanks for the heads up.

EDIT: Found it on Youtube, it takes off at around 2:54.

[GregC]

Cool, thanks for the list! I never knew exactly what Pino played on before except for the D'Angelo album.

Here's a great live performance of Chicken Grease.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4XI6LXCsH8

[()smoke()]

i didn't know pino played on Common's Electric Circus!

that might explain why i like that album so much!

[MixBass]

Originally Posted by GregC

Cool, thanks for the list! I never knew exactly what Pino played on before except for the D'Angelo album.

Here's a great live performance of Chicken Grease.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4XI6LXCsH8

Fwiw Pino played on heaps more stuff, this is the more urban side of his discog, and a great list at that. Nice work Randy, I'll be looking for some of this stuff.

[GregC]

Originally Posted by MixBass

Fwiw Pino played on heaps more stuff, this is the more urban side of his discog, and a great list at that. Nice work Randy, I'll be looking for some of this stuff.

Oh, I wasn't clear enough in my post. I know he's played on a boatload of tracks, I meant within R&B/Hip Hop.

[paul_wolfe]

Great list.

If you want to see where his R&B/Hip Hop groove came from check out the version of STOP ON BY that Paul Young recorded with Chaka on an album in the early 90s - Other Voices I think.

You can link directly from that to his work 7 or 8 years later with D'Angelo and others.

For what it's worth Chicken Grease and Penitentiary Philosophy are my faves from Pino's urban grooves.

[Randy Newton]

Excerpts from 4 Fantastic by Chris Jisi
Bass Player Magazine (March 2004 issue)

...

You’ve been splitting your time lately between the studio and touring. How do you decide when to focus on sessions and when to take a road gig?

To be honest, I don’t get offered a lot of road gigs, so I feel like when a special opportunity comes along, such as D’Angelo or the Who or Simon &Garfunkel, I have to take it. But my main career is session work. That said, I’m not sure how much of a session scene exists anymore. Eighty to 85 percent of the session calls I get are from outside the U.K. and mostly in the States, so I’m traveling anyway.

Are you seeing a trend toward having more real bass and drums on dates, and having the rhythm section record together, as opposed to overdubbing a part by yourself?

I think in the States there are more records with real bass and real drums. Thankfully people like D’Angelo and Raphael Saadiq are introducing generations raised on machines to real instruments. Other artists ask, “Wow, how do they get that feel?” You can’t get it with machines. Personally, I try to make a point of taking sessions that have a live section playing together. That’s always my first question: How are you going to cut the track? I’d say I do 75 percent live-section dates versus 25 percent overdubbing by myself. A lot of young producers bring me in with the idea of adding drums later, and I’ll say, “Why don’t you do the bass and drums together; that way we can work off each other,” and they’ll say, “Hey, that’s a great idea.” There is something to be said for coming in at the end and finding the space to put something special on the track, but I don’t get much of that anymore, and it’s mostly in Europe when I do. I’m open to both situations, but for me it’s most satisfying to interact with a section.

How do you come up with parts? Do you think in terms of chords, melodies, or rhythmic ideas?

I just wait for something to come into my head. Sometimes I let the track play without any bass a few times to see if I can imagine the bass line, or I’ll ask the rest of the rhythm section to play while I try to find a part. It varies; in the writing team I have with [keyboardist] James Poyser and [Roots drummer] Ahmir Thompson, we just play together until we mold something into shape, which is the most enjoyable way for me—reacting to whatever I hear. Technically, there’s a degree of musical knowledge in the equation—knowing the changes and being aware that you can play something nice over this Em9 chord coming up. There are certain places in a song where each musician gets a little spark and thinks, Well, I can put something special in here—this spot is where I can do my thing. The rest of the time it’s a probably a good idea to just keep it simple.
...
Your work with D’Angelo symbolizes your move back to your R&B influences and fretted bass.

Well, as you say, my roots and the music in my heart has always been R&B. The move back really started around 1994, after I got my ’63 P-Bass and put flatwounds on it. I’d been writing with [drummer] Steve Jordan, and I used the bass on a great album we did for Tom Jones that unfortunately never came out. [Bonnie Raitt bassist] Hutch Hutchinson heard the tracks, and he recommended me to producer John Porter, who called and asked me to bring the P-Bass for B.B. King’s Deuces Wild CD. That’s where I met D’Angelo, and we hit it off in a big way. Whenever he sang, I played better! He said, “You’ve got the sound I’m looking for—come and play on my album.” That was incredibly fortunate, because it also led to sessions with a variety of other hip-hop artists, and the formation of the writing team with D’s sidemen, James and Ahmir.

D’Angelo’s behind-the-beat grooves have intrigued many musicians. What light can you shed on the subject?

It’s something D and Raphael Saadiq got from hip-hop—where the samples are not always in perfect time, creating a certain sloppy feel—which they incorporated into the way they feel music. Actually, that loose feel has always been around; I don’t think it’s anything new, really, but D’s take on it and the way he arranged it on his tracks is the key—he brought it to the next level. For whatever reason, I took to the feel completely, and I felt fortunate to get it first-hand from one of the originators.

How do you approach the feel?

The only way I can play that style of bass—really hanging back—is for the drummer to sort of ignore what I’m doing. The tension is created by the drummer keeping the beat strongly in the middle and maybe even pushing slightly. If the drummer tries to hold back with me, the tension is gone. I like to feel the snare just on the edge of pushing, and then I can sit back in a certain space that makes the groove wider. It’s not about listening to the drummer and playing an instant later; I’m still locking with the drums, but I’m feeling the groove in a different rhythmic dimension.

Has the hip-hop side of your career led you to any new techniques?

In a sense. I play with pretty much the same basic techniques, although I have a lot of different ways I touch the instrument now. It ranges from traditional two-finger plucking to a guitar-like fingerstyle approach where I pluck the E string with my thumb, the A string with my index finger, the D with my middle finger, and the G with my ring finger. And I’ll apply my palm to mute the strings to varying degrees. That all developed from playing live, because the palm-mute and thumb or fingerstyle plucks were a way for me to bring down the dynamic level without having to turn down my volume. An interesting aspect of my P-Basses is that I play with the volume all the way up and a minimal amount of treble, and when I turn the treble off altogether it somehow gives the illusion that I’ve added bottom.

[Randy Newton]

I've been listening to Alain Clark's Color Blind and i wouldn't put it in a nusoul/hip hop selection. If i do that, i'd have to add many artists (Eric Benet,Amos Lee,Ziggy Marley,John Mayer,IG Culture or The Herbalizer...) but thanks anyway, i found Wonderful Day (very EWF-ish chorus), Love Is Everywhere and Rich, really good

[BobaMosfett]

I know what you mean...

But the important thing is you seem to have a complete discography of Pino's work!

How can I obtain such knowledge??

[Randy Newton]

I've always been a great fan of his work; I discovered him on Tears For Fears' Badman's Song off The Seeds Of Love back in...'89. (I still love that song and what he did on it; that's incredible:always in the pocket but yet subtly improvising) At the same time, I also noticed him on Paul Young's cover of Stop On By with Chaka Khan(he killed me again :P)
I've always read albums credits so I've seen Pino's name many times...
But most important,regarding this thread's topic,I knew that famous BB King's record where Pino & D met while recording Ain't Nobody Home (Deuces Wild from '97) it all started from that particular session.Being deeply into Brown Sugar since '95, I was extatic and i thought: "if these two cats could collaborate, it would be insane!"
... and 3 years later I realized i was sooooooooooooo right!!!!!
Besides, i was Questlove's biggest fan since Do You Want More? ('95) So, hearing those 3 classy cats together was kind of a dream that came true 8)

To me, the 'Thompson/Poyser/Alford/Palladino' rythm section/writing team is the best ever;they can play absolutely anything: all kinds of soul & funk, pop, rock, jazz, afro-beat...and they always sound so genuine that's scary!

The thing is that i know really well about 80% of this nusoul list and that's really what I prefer from Pino's whole discography

I've posted a dozen of Pino play-along vids on YouTube, here's my latest:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mEcaeYfgLA

[Randy Newton]

Yeah Pino is the most surprising cat out there!
I've been following him since '89 and I still get caught lol
He also played on Youssou N'Dour's 'My Hope Is In You' off Joko(from village to town) from 2000, with Gabin Dabiré on Tiéru from 2002 and last year he played on the whole Ziggy Marley Family Affair album...to be continued

[Bernie Connors]

Very cool interview. Thanks for posting.

Pino is the man!