Carl Stanbridge

About this episode

Carl wanted to be a drummer. A keyboard player at his church in Felixstowe told him they would get a bass first and he could do drums later, which is how a drummer became a bassist for the next thirty years. An eighty-pound Westone, a month of being stood next to and told don't rush, don't slow down, a first tape session at sixteen, a careers advisor who said making your hobby your job would only bore him, a year at art college, a year in a van called Betsy, then Bass Tech in London on a government grant. Seeing Mark King and later Abraham Laboriel play were the two moments that showed him what the instrument could do.

What follows is an unusually complete picture of a portfolio career. The many heads he swaps between, funk and blues and jazz and double bass and the reading gigs. Twenty-six years of Young Voices, which has grown from four shows to thirty-odd every January and February. Doing his own accounts ever since an accountant turned up at college for a single afternoon. Running and sleeping his way through a seven-week tour, mild tinnitus and two sets of earplugs that are never quite the right one. And teaching, which he says sometimes turns into a therapy session. Asked why he does not worry, he answers faith, and he gives it straight.

In this episode

Every theme we put to every guest. Jump straight to it in the video.

• 2:14The CraftExplaining the job to a stranger, what a bass actually does in a song, and the many heads: gospel, funk, blues, jazz, double bass, a West End pit and an arena full of children. Then the teaching, and the lesson that turns into a therapy session.
• 24:22The MachineSession work drying up, sample bass, Nashville as the last bastion, and why two takes in a room beat a fortnight of sending files back and forth.
• 31:33The MoneyDoing his own accounts ever since an accountant came into Bass Tech for one afternoon. Seasonal income, the pension he started far too late, and the fifty-pound-a-week years.
• 37:15The HeadFaith as the thing that stops him worrying, the weeks when expected work does not happen, and the stretch in lockdown he spent selling watches for his brother-in-law.
• 40:13The BodyOutdoor gyms on tour, and what knowing about the morning run does to the night before. Sleeping at will in two minutes, and the flatness of day two at home after seven weeks away.
• 51:24The GearAt least ten basses in one room. A 1973 Jazz off Gumtree he would not sell to a very persistent German, a Mustang with a melted scratchplate, and mild tinnitus with two sets of earplugs that are never the right one.
• 1:01:21The ReckoningDon't belittle the unpaid gigs, they grow into other things. And the people who did best were not the best players, they were the most resourceful.
• 1:13:21The Road InPushed off the drums and onto an eighty-pound Westone at church, the careers advisor who said making your hobby your job would only bore him, a year in a van called Betsy, then Bass Tech on a government grant.