Guy Pratt - My Bass And Other Animals

Recommended Reading…

I haven’t done a specific post about a book before but I felt this one would appeal to many people who pass by here and for me, was one of the best music related books I’ve read in a while.

Guy Pratt is probably best known for his bass playing duties in the post-Roger Waters Pink Floyd live line-up. As such he’s appeared all over the world with them as well as on “Delicate Sound Of Thunder” and “Pulse”, also playing on some of Floyd’s last (final?) album “The Division Bell”. Consequently he’s amassed a large collection of anecdotes and stories that provide the substance for his own one man show that has included an appearance at Glastonbury on the Comedy Stage… and of course, for this book.

Taking in also escapades and recollections from time also spent with the likes of Icehouse, Robert Palmer, Madonna and Roxy Music to name a few, Pratt delivers the book in a hugely entertaining and amusing way that once started makes it hard to stop reading.

Aside from the Pink Floyd stories perhaps the most interesting section for me personally recounts the time he spent as a member of the “Coverdale Page” band playing on their Japanese tour. Clearly Jimmy Page is something of an idol for him but it was also interesting to read of his comments about David Coverdale, especially from when he was asked to play on Whitesnake’s “Restless Heart” album. Pratt states Coverdale sings much of the rehearsal material in that deep, lower register of his saving his balls-out screams for the actual recording. Not a surprise of course but the statement that the deeper voice actually sounds so much better is something I’ve thought for years and also a style I thought he recaptured somewhat on that album, which in many ways was a return to the old blues-rock roots of Whitesnake.

This book will obviously be most interesting to fans of Pink Floyd though. Much of the book is given over to Pratt’s time with the band either in rehearsals or on tour whilst some of the problems encountered as he dated and subsequently married Floyd keyboard player Rick Wright’s daughter are especially funny. For instance, when he enquired of Wright how long it took for him to accept that Pratt was dating his daughter the reply was “6 years”. At this point he’d been seeing his daughter just two years!

Just one chapter is given over to the technical, equipment listing detail some muso’s so enjoy - and that’s rightly kept for an appendix entitled “Train Sets”, the rest is just an amusing and interesting account of a life in the music business from a different perspective.

Well worth a read!

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BL