Leland Sklar

Leland Bruce Sklar was born May 28, 1947, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His mother's family was from Duluth, Minnesota. His father's family was from Milwaukee. Originally, the paternal side of the family came from Odesa, Ukraine. Sklar is of Jewish heritage and his Ukrainian surname means glazier, a person whose profession is fitting glass into windows and doors. When Leland was four, his family and he moved to Van Nuys, California, a central San Fernando Valley neighborhood in the northwest section of metropolitan Los Angeles. At five, Sklar was inspired to take up classical piano from watching Liberace on TV. Sklar's mother already had a baby grand piano in the home. The Liberace Show completely captivated young Leland, Liberace's style and panache, the candelabra and his older brother George on the violin. Sklar started studying piano just after turning five years old. His natural talent and passion for the instrument saw him excel. By the time he was seven he had won awards from the Hollywood Bowl Association as the most accomplished young pianist in Los Angeles for his age group. By the time he was twelve, though, he was completely burned out. He had a piano teacher who he believes was living out her lack of a career through him. Sklar took to it immediately and began playing string bass in the orchestra and dance band. In high school, Sklar was in the marching band and played bass drum for the first year. He then sought other options. Being a bass player, he was given three choices: the bass drum, Sousaphone or drum major. Sklar chose to become one of the dual drum majors. He was sent to Redlands University for a summer course in being a drum major and designing half time shows. He still has his baton. Sklar graduated from Birmingham High School in 1965 and stopped shaving, the beginning of his iconic beard. Dennis and Doug Dragon were Daryl's two brothers. Other classmates while attending San Fernando Valley State were saxophonist Tom Scott and actor/comedian Cheech Marin. ==Career==

In the 1960s, Sklar was in numerous bands, including Mike and the Mad Men, The Percolators, The Comfortable Charos, The Brimstones, and The El Dorados. Sometimes he was in five bands at one time, doing all kinds of music, trying to find himself. Sklar has commented that the music business is based on networking. He tried to meet as many people as possible, worked really hard, and hoped for the best. In 1967, Group Therapy had been signed to the Canterbury The group did do their own vocals, but the music was recorded by the legendary Wrecking Crew. The tracks were produced by Mike Post. It was through this connection that Sklar would later work with Post on every one of his TV shows: The Rockford Files, Magnum, P.I., Hill Street Blues, The A-Team, to name a few. In 1969, Sklar was the bass player for a hard rock band managed by Bill Graham called Wolfgang, consisting of Bryn Haworth, Ricky Lancelotti, Kevin Kelley, Randy Zacuto and Warren 'Bugs' Pemberton. They opened for Led Zeppelin, It was during this time Sklar met James Taylor. A friend of Wolfgang's drummer Bugs Pemberton, John Fischbach, co-owner of Crystal Sound on Vine Street in Hollywood, brought his friend James Taylor around to Wolfgang's rehearsal house in Sunland. Sklar has attributed the meteoric rise in his career, from an obscure local musician to a noted in-demand player, to producer/musician Peter Asher's insistence on crediting the musicians on the albums he produced. From his first recording with James Taylor on Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon in 1971, Sklar has said that many of the burgeoning singer/songwriters looked to the musicians who helped propel Taylor to fame as worth engaging for their own efforts. Asher's crediting practice also marked a profound transition from the relative obscurity of members of The Wrecking Crew era to the next generation of high profile, named performers. In the 1970s, Sklar worked together so frequently with drummer Russ Kunkel, guitarist Danny Kortchmar, and keyboardist Craig Doerge, who replaced King after her own rise to stardom, that they became "The Section," a distinction Taylor had bestowed upon them as his rhythm section. They backed other artists, such as Jackson Browne. The Section recorded three rock fusion albums of their own under that name, in 1972, 1973 and 1977. With little label support, however, The Section disbanded in 1978, in favor of more lucrative individual endeavors. in Marin County on what would become Linda Ronstadt's album Winter Light, Sklar got a phone call from Michael Frondelli, who ran Capitol Records Studios and was producing a band, the Barefoot Servants. They were looking for a bass player and asked if he was interested. Frondelli sent Sklar a demo cassette and, after three notes, Sklar said "count me in". Sklar had never met the three other seasoned musicians before: Jon Butcher (guitar, vocals), Ben Schultz (guitar, mandolin, slide guitar), and Ray Brinker (drums, percussion). The foursome rehearsed and cut the first, self-titled album, Barefoot Servants, live in the studio. The band followed by going on The Southern Spirit Tour in 1994 with The Marshall Tucker Band, 38 Special, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, and the Outlaws. They called it Bubbapolooza. Over time, the Barefoot Servants became a cult band; the label (Epic) offered little support. Eleven years after their first album, the Barefoot Servants recorded a second album at Ben Schultz's home studio, this time with Neal Wilkinson on drums. They called it Barefoot Servants 2, reminiscent of the line from the Bob Dylan song All Along the Watchtower. (Jon Butcher is a great admirer of Jimi Hendrix.) The album was released in August 2005 on the Atom Records label. Sklar performed again with James Taylor, Carole King, Danny Kortchmar and Russ Kunkel in a series of six shows at the Troubadour on November 28–30, 2007 for the 50th Anniversary of the club. They all teamed up again for the Troubadour Reunion Tour in 2010. Sklar did the Falling In Between Tour with Toto in 2007–2008, filling in for his friend Mike Porcaro, who was stricken with ALS. Their first, eponymously titled, U.S. album, The Immediate Family, was released in 2021. A brief tour of select cities in the U.S. was conducted in November 2021. In 2020, while idled by the COVID pandemic, Sklar started a YouTube channel, initially to demonstrate the bass parts to a few of the songs he'd played on tour with Phil Collins, but which grew exponentially into a journey of music appreciation and an exploration of his expansive career. Sklar also created a coffee table book, Everybody Loves Me, of approximately 6000 photos from a collection of over 12,000 images of celebrities and common folk giving him "the finger," which has become his signature gesture. A website to service his book, art prints, T-shirts and other merchandise was developed. Sklar has also explored the NFT market with another web site. On May 6, 2020, Sklar created a Top Ten list of his favorite songs of all time for Spotify. They were With A Little Help From My Friends performed by Joe Cocker, Back in the High Life Again by Steve Winwood, Millworker by James Taylor, The Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughan Williams, The Rubberband Man by The Spinners, the title track from the album No Other by Gene Clark, Knock On Wood by Eddie Floyd, Behind The Lines - 2015 Remastered by Phil Collins, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um by Major Lance, and Harlem Shuffle by Bob & Earl. Sklar has stated that his favorite bassist was Rinat Ibragimov, formerly of the London Symphony Orchestra. event sponsored by ASCAP at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and the pre-show for the Grammy Awards. On January 2, 2022, Sklar was seen performing in concert with James Taylor and Carole King in the CNN documentary "Just Call Out My Name." On April 28 2026 Leland Sklar was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame in Nashville, along with a number of other musicians such as Keith Urban, Dolly Parton and George Thorogood & The Destroyers. ==Equipment==

Basses Peace/Love When Sklar gained notice in 1970, he was playing a 1962 Fender Jazz Bass, his first professional bass, which he carved up with the artistic flair of the time. He calls it his Peace/Love bass. He played the bass on James Taylor's One Man Dog, on the early Section albums, and on Billy Cobham's Spectrum. He played it exclusively until 1974. Frankenstein Sklar's favorite instrument came next, an electric bass constructed by John Carruthers, the repairman at Westwood Music, in 1973. It was customized from various bass parts, consisting of a 1962 Fender Precision Bass neck, reshaped to the profile of Sklar's 1962 Fender Jazz Bass neck and fitted with mandolin fret wire, the smallest available (and on all of his subsequent basses), an alder Charvel P-Bass body with two sets of first-generation EMG Precision Bass pickups in reversed orientation, routed into J-Bass positions, and power by a 9 volt battery each, a Badass II bridge, and a prototype Hipshot detuner. He refers to it as "Frankenstein". The bass has been used on roughly 85 percent of his recordings. Dingwall In 2004, Sklar began playing a signature model five-string bass made by Dingwall Guitars. This was his main bass on tour and was also used in various recordings. The bass uses fanned frets, which result in longer low strings and shorter high strings. In 2013, after years of having been a Warwick Star Bass II player, he became an endorser of that instrument. At the 2016 NAMM Show, Warwick announced their Lee Sklar signature bass, based on the Star Bass but with an offset body shape and a forearm contour. Others Previously, Sklar also had signature instruments from Gibson and Valley Arts Guitar. Sklar owns a Washburn AB45 five string acoustic bass which he was not pleased with until he removed the frets, making it a fretless bass. He said, then, "It came alive." He uses black nylon tape wound strings on the Washburn. In his work, he uses fretless sparingly. Strings Sklar uses GHS Super Steel medium light strings: .040, .058, .080, and .102 inches in diameter. He likes a .040 G-string for its flexibility, facilitating expressive playing. His Dingwall bass has Dingwall strings, with a GHS .040 G-string. Amplification Sklar keeps his amplification implementations simple and adaptable. He has three basic Euphonic Audio amp set ups for three specific applications: studio, intimate settings, and larger stage situations. Sklar has been using EA amplification roughly since 2003. Accessories Sklar has Moog Taurus pedals and Fast Forward Designs Midi Step pedals which he used on the Phil Collins song In the Air Tonight. ==Discography==

• Rhinestone (Actor: Rhinestone House Band, as Lee Sklar) — (1984) • Ticker (Actor: Blues Band Bass) — (2001) ==References==