When doing a writeup on Pino Palladino, it is apparently important to start the article by mentioning that he was born October 17, 1957, in Cardiff Wales to parents of Welsh and Italian ancestry.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6]}

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, I would like to move on and say that Pino Palladino is a musician’s musician, and a man who has quietly been playing bass with the giants of the music industry for more than four decades. Mr. Palladino is also interesting in that *what* the average person associates with him may very wildly by age and musical interest. To some he’s the bassist behind Paul Young’s cover of Wherever I Lay My Hat, to others, he’s the replacement bassist for The Who, and to others he might be the genius collaborator behind Erykah Badyu’s Mama’s Gun and D’Angelo’s Voodoo. I know a couple of people who learned about him via John Mayer and there may even be some cursed soul who associates him with this Pitbull and Keith urban collab.

I first became aware of Palladino after looking into this 1986 and freestyle canoeing classic, but his career and musical ability clearly are elevated beyond the particular sound of the fretless bass or any singular genre. He had a hand in the pop sound of the 80’s, the neo-soul of the 00’s, has done canto-pop throwbacks and done charity albums with Pavarotti and Bon Jovi. Not only is he a multifaceted bass instrumentalist, but as far as I can tell, he is a musician who has consistently impressed the lead acts he has collaborated with, to the point of being given songwriting credits on work with various artists including Gary Numan, Pete Townsend, and John Mayer.

While today he may bear the title of a “first call session” player, I would say that Pino Palladino’s impact on pop music over the decades goes beyond just pop, bringing a bit of musicianship and his own individual art into every song he touches. Whether it be deciphering the heart of Prince musical terminology like Chicken Grease, or starting songs off with Stravinsky references, Pino Palladino is a quiet giant of bass guitar and his multi-genre and multi-decade spanning career merits some examination.

Without further ado, here is my Pino Palladino Anthology.