This came about working with Pete Thomas on a album by a Spanish band, we got on well and he thought I had a “good beat”. The next week I got a call from Elvis’s office to work on some tracks with him. When I got to the studio’s he was freaked out by my ken smith 6 string bass, he went out and brought in a violin bass and asked if I’d mind playing this. Well, yes I did mind but what am I going to say. Here I was working with an artiste I loved and I was now having to play this terrible instrument that couldn’t get further away from the bass I played on a daily basis! I remember being very down hearted and frankly couldn’t wait to get out. We recorded several tracks, all live and no more then 2/3 takes. Steve Nieve was on keys and wasn’t that talkative as I remember. As I was about to leave Elvis decide he wanted to record ‘anyone who had a heart’, so we went back in and played this once and it’s on a record somewhere. Another track ended up on the brutal youth album. I didn’t think I’d be invited back, and I wasn’t to worried about that either. Don’t misunderstand, he was very nice as were all the band, but I just wasn’t feeling I’d expressed myself as I would normally because I had to play that unfamiliar instrument. However I did get another call and recorded some tracks for a film Elvis was writing the music for.
Some years later I was booked on a session at Abbey Road, when I got in the studio I was a little confused as there were two other bass players there, Laurence Cottle and Pete Clark, both of them I knew. It turned out that Laurence was playing of the score of the movie, Pete was music editor and I was just called to play on one song for the end of the film. The film was called Notting Hill and the song “She”. Elvis came in, shook my hand sang it live with the band and they took the 2” tape straight down to studio one where the strings were waiting to play on it. Funny old game eh!