Kid Reggie in good company!




REGGIE WORTHY’s career as bassist, singer, and songwriter spans almost 4 decades. Already as a teenager in Plainfield, New Jersey, USA he played professionally. While still in school REGGIE played bass on his first local hit, “Let Me Be Your Man” by Tyrone Ashley. Most of his early experience came from playing live with his buddy Gregg “Daffy Duck” Fitz(Quazar, John Hickey Band, Bootsy Collins) in a band they had called Underground Funk. After finishing school he moved to Los Angeles, California where he became bassist for the Ike & Tina Turner Soul Revue(Nutbush City Limits, Proud Mary, etc) and the group STARGARD(Which Way is Up).
While living in LA, Reggie would often fly to Germany to play on a production or do some live playing. During this time he recorded albums or played live with Frank Diez(Peter Mafay), Eric Burdon(The Animals, War), Jackie Carter, Udo Lindenberg, Falco, Inga Rumpf, and more.
He came to Munich, Germany in the early 80’s to record an LP and play some live gigs for Patrick Gammon(Ike&Tina Turner) and ended up staying. Since that time REGGIE has played with or is playing with groups like US 5, N´Sync with Justin Timberlake, Stefan Gwidis, Albano & Romina Power, Arkarmo, Nico Suave, STOPPOK, Universal Supersession, D-Phunk, Käpt´n Kaos, The Giants(Australia), Denise M´baye, Aleksey, Emergency Room, Howard Carpendale, Jimi Voxx, and more.
If you ever saw the “US 5” live DV D recorded 2006 in Münsterland Halle, Münster, Germany, you will hear singer Jay say how glad he is to have someone as professional and with so much experience as REGGIE in the US 5 band. Well the feeling is mutual, and Reggie finds it an honour and a blessing to be able to play music across time lines and musical styles………..from Ike & Tina Turner to US 5, to Stoppok, and almost everything in-between. Whether R&B, Blues, Soul, Rock, Hip Hop, Pop, Jazz, or Funk, REGGIE feels at home with the music.
Being a great singer in his own right, REGGIE has formed his own band called “THE REGGIE WORTHY BAND”, And after many years of supporting and playing for other artists is finally, with the help from Swen Waje of Fettes Brot and STOPPOK, in the studio recording his first CD.









LONG BIO IN ENGLISH

Reggie was born in Shelby, North Carolina on the 30th of May, 19-hundred and none of your business.
His first contact with playing music came from his grandmother Lucy Thomas Worthy, a Cherokee woman, who had a piano in her house. "They also had an old radio, and I used to stay up late at night listening to a DJ named Randy broadcasting from Tennessee playing blues and soul music", remembers Reggie. "And of course we went to church every Sunday" and listened to the preacher sing-preach.
His music training started in the first grade where he learned to play the flute.

When he was 11 years old his family moved to Plainfield, New Jersey, and that’s when Reggie started playing bass. His first bass was a St. George 4 string. There was something brewing at the time in Plainfield. "The hood was booming....... music was everywhere. That’s when I started my first band with Anthony Barclay on guitar, Russell Douglas on drums, and Reggie Lashley on organ. We used to play James Brown and Temptation songs for parties and at the school dances. I realized at a young age that music was the way to go.......I mean-----you're having fun, you get paid, you get respect, and you meet girls. What could be better than that?" Reggie played a Höfner "beatle bass" at that time. Soon after he joined Underground Funk, a band with Elijah Miles and later Jeff Chandler on drums, Harvey Banks-rip on lead guitar, Donnie Fitz-rip on vocals and rhythm guitar, Greg Fitz on Keyboards, Jackie Fitz on vocals, and Butchie Banks on congas. We even had a manager, Robert Honablue who helped get us get gigs. We were under age but still we played in some of the local clubs.


“That was a great feeling when at school during lunch time I heard the first record that I played on blasting out of the cafeteria speakers. Boy was I proud, my first hit!” Plainfield was full of great young musicians. Some of the other local players were Glenn Goins-rip, who played guitar and sang in a band with Richard Boyce playing bass…… Gary Shider on guitar and Boogie on bass, they had a group called United Souls with Harvey McGhee on drums. Boogie’s brother Cool Pop played guitar too, just like Glenn’s brother Monty, and Gary’s brother Tommy. Leroy Williams was also a great bass player. He had a Jamerson style. I mean Plainfield was just bubbling with good young musicians. We all looked up to some older guys who were meeting at a local barbershop.
One of the barbers there, George Clinton had a group called the Parliaments and his backing musicians were our local heroes. Billy “Bass” Nelson played bass, the guitar players were Eddie Hazel and Tal Ross, and Bernie Worrel played keyboards. They called themselves the Funkadelics. Yes you got it right..this was the beginning of P-Funk, Pure Funk, Plainfield Funk, Liberty Street Projects Funk. Now you know what the P means and I am proud of my home boys that went on to change the course of music history with the funk. I also give props to those that were lost on the way,”

Being that Reggie never had bass lessons, he learned bass on his own from listening to records and trying to copy what guys like Willie Weeks, James Jamerson, and Bootsy Collins were playing. “ Jimi Hendrix came along opened all our minds up to the potential of the electric instrument and when I first heard Tim Bogert’s bass solo on “The Break Song”, that just changed everything. Then I heard “Roundabout” from the group YES with Chris Squire on bass, and that did it. The thud sound was out; the roto-sound growl was in. I saved up my money and went out and bought me a Rickenbacker 4001 bass and started rocking big time,” Reggie< remembers. I saw Tim Bogert with his band Cactus and opening act Humble Pie with Steve Marriot at the Filmore East and they just blew me away. I didn’t understand what it was about this music that drew me to it until later when I realized that what they were playing was the same music that I had heard as a kid in North Carolina. The blues, Sonny Boy Williamson, Muddy Waters, Ike Turner, Howling Wolf, and so on was what they were playing. They just took it turned it around, added a big sound, and gave it back to us,"

Another turning point was when Reggie heard the funk music of Miles Davis’ wife Betty Davis. Her music helped lay the foundation for funk rock that was a big influence to him and others----mixing heavy guitar, solid drums, and funky bass with a simple but raunchy vocal arrangement----no frills attached!
After studying at Rutgers University, New Brunswick for a while, Reggie decided to go west.


He and drummer Jeff Chandler moved to LA and started a band with Gil Coleman on vocals, Kevin Davis on keyboards, and Guy Cornwell on guitar. They played the local LA clubs and also toured Japan, Europe, and the States as the backup band for “The Sophisticates”, a female vocal group. At this time he also met Janice Johnson, the bassist from the band “A Taste of Honey”. Janice and Reggie shared bass ideas and he was happy when “A Taste of Honey” had their big success with “Boogie Oogie Oogie” and “Sukiyaki”. Janice-Marie is still very active in the scene and recently just won a Native American Music Award.

It was a different sound out west though, and Reggie remembers hearing Larry Graham’s song “Hair” for the first time on the radio. It was an amazing sound that he hadn’t heard yet. "They were thumping on the west coast, man, like crazy. There was Louis Johnson from the Brother’s Johnson, Rusty Allen-later with Sly, Kenny Burke from the 5 Stairsteps, Duke Jobe from Rose Royce, and on and on. The west coast bass players had a totally different approach than what was happening back east, and it was back to the drawing boards for a minute. I had to get some of that. The playing styles around the country and world are probably not so different today because of the media, internet, and instruction possibilities, but back then I could easily tell an east coast player from a west coast player," he said.

Reggie also jammed with Chuck Collins a singer and drummer and Earl Tucker, a guitar player. He also had a project with Gil Bottiglieri from the group “6”. That’s where he met drummer Michael Moore from Andre Lewis’ band Maxanne. “Michael told me that Ike & Tina Turner were looking for a bass player. I called them up and to make a long story short, after one rehearsal I was on tour with them. For the next 3 years we were either on tour or in the studio. We toured Australia 2 times, England, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Indonesia, Yugoslavia, Canada, and all through the States. I played a Fender Precision with flatwounds tone. Ike is himself a fantastic bass player so he knew exactly what he wanted from the bass sound and feel. It was a very challenging situation for a kid from New Jersey, and I learned so much. Turner was a great musician, innovater, and organizer, and Tina was the first and perhaps the greatest female rock singer that ever was. She was like----bring on the Marshall amps……what? that aint loud, and then they would drop the dynamic till you could hear a pin drop.

About a month or so after I left the band I received a call from Tina’s manager saying that she had left Ike and asking if I would like to be a part of her new band. But I was so disillusioned from the way things had gone down and I just needed a break.

After about a year of chilling and getting his head back together, Reggie started getting busy again. Making use of some of the connections he had made while in Europe, he began flying
to Munich doing studio work for people. The piano player Patrick Gammon from Seattle, Washington, who had also played with Ike and Tina was now living in Munich. Patrick and his manager, Gerhard Augustin, invited Reggie over to play and record with him. Reggie also met German guitar player Frank Diez. Frank was producing singer Jackie Carter, and hired Reggie to play the bass.
He also met drummer Curt Cress while working on the Gammon LP “Don’t Touch Me”.
They played well together and Curt asked Reggie to join his band Snowball. This was in the late 1970’s and Reggie was still living in L.A.. He would fly back and forth from there to do these jobs.

Another interesting production that came around this time was an album with Eric Burdon.
Frank Diez played guitar, Betram Engel played drums, Nippy Noya played percussion, Bernd Gärtig-rip played guitar, Jean-Jacques Kravetz played keyboards, and of course Eric Burdon on vocals. The Project was called Fire Department and was recorded at Jonas Porst’s Tonstudio Hiltpoltstein. The engineer was Manny Neuner.

When back in LA, Reggie joined the band Stargard. Stargard was three ladies-- Rochelle Runnels, Debra Anderson, and Janice Williams doing an interesting mixture of funk, soul, and rock. He had played with their drummer Butch in Family Vibes, Ike and Tina’s band. Butch brought him into Stargard. Their claim to fame was the theme to “Which way is up”, a Richard Pryor film, and the song “Whatcha waiting for”, which was produced by Norman Whitfield.

It was an honor meeting Norman Whitfield. This man really knew how to get the band cooking and as far as I’m concerned, is one of the top producers of all time. Stargard toured all through the States with Chic, The Isleys, and Peabo Bryson. That’s when I met Bernard Edwards-rip, the bass player from Chic. They were riding high with their hit “Good Times”. I would stand in the wings and listen to him and I would see him doing the same to me. We had respect for each other though we had totally different styles. We both were playing Fender Precsion basses, but I had added a jazz bass treble pic up to mine and had a more aggressive sound especially for thumping. His sound was a little darker, but man could he groove.

Stargard also toured England as opening act for Rose Royce, the band that had a hit with the song “Car Wash”. They were big in England and we had some nice gigs like at Hammersmith Odeon. By that time I had developed my slapping and had it going on, and the blokes in England hadn’t seen any bass playing like this before, at least not that I knew of and from what they were telling me. I was playing the Precision bass with the extra pic up and the rotosound strings going through the Ampeg SVT
with 2 cabinets….and it was loud and funky. It predated what Level 42 and the other Brit funk bands would be doing by 5 years or so later. Although I must admit, the Brits took it in and threw it back to us in a very nice way. I guess that’s what music is all about. I won’t even try to list the things that I’ve nicked from them. Wanna whole lot of what.......?

After touring England in the early 1980’s, I went to Germany to do some recording with Patrick Gammon, and after staying there for a month or so I returned to LA and chilled for a few months. I returned again to Germany to go on tour with Patrick Gammon. He had a new band with Patricia Shockley, Judy Cheeks, and Jennifer Rush on vocals. Roykey Creo played guitar, Alphonso Gumps played drums, and Moofty Ruff played keyboards. Victoria Miles also sang in the band off and on. Günter Winkler played drums sometimes, too. We rocked many rooms under the name of Gammarock and recorded 3 albums in the process,” claims Worthy.

Now living in Germany, Reggie started focusing on the local German music scene. He met guitarist and producer Jimi Voxx from Berlin. Jimi invited Reggie to join the band that he had with singer Joy Ryder from New York. "We toured Germany and also recorded a CD. That was the CD that the singer from Duran Duran reviewed and said that he would “fire the singer and the band and keep the bass player. Although Jimi shared some of the bass work on the album, I still thought that was pretty funny. Voxx now has a new heavy band called Skew Siskin with Nina doing the singing. They were recently (2003) on tour with Motorhead.

One day in the mid 1980’s while in the studio with Jimi a singer by the name of Inga Rumpf passed through. I had met Inga years ago when I was on tour with Ike and Tina. I even recorded a song for her band Frumpy at Dieter Dirks studio in Stommeln by Cologne. No one could have imagined that I would be living in Germany one day but there I was, and to make another long story short, she invited me to come to Hamburg and do a project with her. We put a band together with Roykey Creo on guitar, Alphonso Gumps on drums, a Bob “Hope” Fissan on keyboards. The group was called Inga Rumpf and Union and we toured for a year and opened for Lionel Ritchie on most of his European tour. This was in the mid 80’s.

I was playing a Staccato Mg Bass. This bass was designed by Chris Jagger, Mick’s little brother. The body and neck are made out of magnesium and has 2 Seymour Duncan pickups. I call the bass Xcalibur. It has a really tight sound that’s fat and metallic. Going through the Ampeg 8x10 was the perfect match up, but very special----not for everyone," says Worthy.
After the Union tour Udo Lindenberg a German rock star invited Reggie to do some gigs and some recording with him. In Hamburg at Chameleon Studios, with Klaus Bohlman as sound engineer, they recorded the LP “Bunte Republic Deutschland” that included the German rock classic hit “Reeperbahn”. Reggie played the Lefay 6 string bass on this album. To this day Udo is a dear friend of Reggie’s and one that he can always turn to.

About this time Reggie gets his first offer to do some acting. In “JFK-the rock opera” Reggie takes one of the lead roles as The Moderator. In German, he leads the audience through all of it’s acts and scenes. It was a great achievement, and a nice place to visit but Reggie didn’t want to stay there. He was glad to be on the road with his bass again.

His next project included saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith from the group Coliseum.
It was in a band called Hamburg Blues Band that had Hans Walbaum on drums, Gerd Langer
on guitar and vocals, and Alex Conti on guitar. Through Dick Heckstall-Smith. "I also met
guitar player John Etheridge, and drummer Mick Waller. We did some touring as a 4 piece and that’s where I decided that it’s time for me to start singing. This was in the early 1990’s.

Through Hans Walbaum, the drummer of the Hamburg Blues Band I got studio job for
Andre Herzberg. We recorded an album and on the session I met Stefan Stoppok who was playing guitar. Stefan told me he was doing a project called “Jumping Jesus” with Christoph Stein-Schneider on guitar, Danny Dzuik on guitar, Achim Grebe on drums, and Beverly Jo Scott on lead vocals. He invited me to check it out and we ended up recording an album together and doing some gigs. He also told me he was doing his own project asked if I would like to play with his band. This was in the mid 1990’s and I’ve been touring and recording with him ever since. We also do an unplugged duo project together called Stoppok + Worthy that, without any promotion and budget, has been quite successful" he says.

In the meantime Reggie got a call from Booyaa Music to play bass on a song by N’Sync. And to date this is the most successful CD-sales wise, which Reggie has ever played on. The album went number 1 on the international charts. On this session he played a Lefay 5 string bass. Reggie was then offered a tour with rising star Nana but had had to refuse due to other appointments.
In the beginning of the new millennium Reggie got together with the Australian rock band, The Giants with Stuart Wood on vocals and guitar, Mark Greig on guitar, and Chris Barton on drums. The Giants are a straight ahead no tricks rock band, and they definitely live up to the Australian rock tradition. We toured Germany together and have plans to get together at a future date. The band has since returned to Melbourne.

In 2003 Reggie got together with Sandberg basses and started designing his own bass.
The first model is now available and a new design is in the makings.

Now it's the present, the middle 2005 and as always it easier to look back and see where you were or look forward and see where you'd like to go
than to see exactly where you are. The more in the present you are the more cloudy things seem to become. Reggie is still moving forward as he concentrates on establishing his own music and band, while in the meantime continuing to work with the projects he's been involved with. He has also been doing some writing lately. Stay tuned as things developed and you'll be kept informed.


Reggie Worthy played and/or recorded with these bands:

1970's
The Majestic Men
Underground Funk -"Funk and Soul“
Tyrone Ashley -"Let Me Be Your Man“
Stargard -"Which Way is Up“
Ike and Tina Turner -"Baby Get It On“
Ike and Tina Turner -"Philadelphia Freedom“
Inga Rumpf and Atlantis
Patrick Gammon -"Rawness“
Eric Burdon -"Power Company“
Joy Rider -"Joy Rider“

1980's
Patrick Gammon -"Don't Touch Me“
Snowball -"Cold Heat“
Udo Lindenberg -"Reeperbahn“
Inga Rumpf -"Union"
Inga Rumpf and Frumpy -"Now“
Hong Kong Syndicat -"Come Together“

1990's
Nico Suave -"Vergesslich“
N'Sync
Reggie Worthy -"Bermuda Paradise"
Dascha -"I'll Always be True"
Akarmo
Stoppok -"Feine Idee“
Universal Supersession -"Abracadabra“
Stoppok -"Neues aus La-La-Land“
Deutschland Phunk -"This World“
Al Bano and Romina Power
Käpt'n Kaos -"Showtime“
Denise M'baye -"I'Listoire Rose“
Stoppok and Worthy -"Stoppok and Worthy“
Reggie Worthy &DPhunk -"Tell the World“

2001
Serafin
Howard Carpendale
Stoppok -"Wellness“
Creme Caramel

2002
Stoppok
Stoppok and Worthy
The Giants
The Reggie Worthy Band
D-Phunk

2003
The Reggie Worthy Band
Stoppok and Worthy
Stoppok
D-Phunk
Creme Caramel