Larry Knechtel, Bassist

[truand85]

Thank you for taking the time to share with us. This is going to make a lot of people's day - mine included!

 

[biobass]

Thank you for a great memorial tribute to your father.

 

[Ekulati]

Wow, so cool Lonnie. Thanks for this history. Needless to say, your dad's name is all over the majority of my record collection. By the way, what was your grandfather's grocery store? My great grandfather was one of the Ralphs brothers who started that company in the 1800s.

 

[Todd Hamby]

Lonnie thank you so much for this. Truly fascinating.

 

[ELG60]

What a wonderful way to share a bit of your father (and yourself) with us. Greatly enjoyed and appreciated. Thank you.

 

[ElectroVibe]

Love this bass line. I remember teaching myself this on both guitar and bass in the early 90s. I never found a band to play with who would perform this, but I was ready.
David wrote the song about his own father.

 

[ric4682]

So cool. Thanks Lonnie

 

[Ostie]

Fascinating stuff. Thanks very much.

 

[Spidey2112]

I liked his bass lines too, there's still much I could learn from them.

The gift that keeps on giving. Great story, man... thanks for sharing!

 

[Kmrumedy]

Best thing I've read on TB in a long time! Thank you so much Lonnie.

 

[el basso]

I just woke up on a quiet snowy Chicago Sunday morning and this was the first thing I read. "The Best of Bread" was the first record I learned, memorized, and listened to over and over again - at age six in 1976. My love of bass and obsession with light/yacht rock is because of your dad's beautiful work. Thank you for sharing all of this, Lonnie.

 

[jmlee]

Thanks so much for this. It’s wonderful to have first-hand records of important musical lives like your Dad’s.

The Mrs. Robinson story is interesting. I’ve been listening (as an audiobook) to Malcolm Gladwell’s new collection of interviews with Paul Simon. I’d recommend it to any musician, particularly in the audiobook format with the interviews in Paul’s voice and guitar—plus there’s lots of recordings sampled. At one point in the interviews, he comments that many of his songs started out as guitar licks, and he plays bits of the opening of Sounds Of Silence and Mrs. Robinson as examples.

 

[Low Down Brown]

Man....this was an awesome read. Your pops was a BOSS! Thanks for posting this! This is the kind of thread that makes TB worth coming back to every day.

 

[Drkwdsman]

Lonnie, much appreciated!

 

[ElectroVibe]

Here is a good quality TV concert with Larry playing a variety of instruments. It looks like he liked to have fun. At one point David gives him a nice little introduction. They have a different lead guitarist but he does a pretty good rendering of Larry's lead on Guitar Man.

 

[soulstew]

Man, that was a great read! I first became aware of your dad in the mid-70s as a teenager, and already a liner notes / credits junkie, and when a Bread album showed up in our house, and then a Tom Scott album, and your dad was on both of them, I remember thinking that anyone who could span those two styles was someone really special. My dad is a sax player, so Jim Horn and Tom Scott were highly regarded in our house, and your dad played with both of them, and, as I've since learned, about a thousand other songs that I love. Welcome to the forum!

 

[ToP fan]

Thank you so much for this remembrance of your Dad. It drives my nurses crazy but I often start my list in the OR with "Chevy Van" or "Guitar Man" - I'll do this now with an extra smile and appreciation for your father.

Dave

 

[GodPlayedBass]

Bass players never get proper credit. This is a mile long conversation and honestly until we get a bass players union it will continue lol

 

[DrThumpenstein]

Thanks for sharing that history! An interesting story well told, and leaves me wanting to know more!

 

[Prof.Dr.Metz]

Awesome! Thanks Lonnie