Fergie Fulton

Classical Training

Fergie Fulton is a musical fusion on four strings in the 50-150Hz range… in other words bass. classically trained in Trumpet and Cornet as a child he eventually grew into baritone and tenor horn before he turned his back on a music scholarship and picked up bass guitar.

“ I started off at the top end of the orchestra but I liked the feel of the other end, their instruments sounded more fun and you could feel them”

When asked why he started at the top end he replies “mouth pieces, the mouth piece for the Eb bass, euphonium, tenor horn etc were just to big for me to handle” “as I got older I could produce the breath control and lip pressure you required to play these instruments well”. “ If I had stayed in classical music I would have liked to end up at the Eb bass job.” The tenor horn was as far as I got and I played and studied with the SSYO (Scottish Symphony Youth Orchestra) under Mr. Albert Sloane.” But an earlier encounter with the bass in the form of Bill Black playing with Elvis some years earlier was still in the back of his mind.

Popular Music

“ I saw this programme ‘All you need is love‘, it was a history of popular music and one of the early episodes dealt with Blues and Rock’n’Roll” “There was some old footage of Elvis doing Heartbreak Hotel and the bass line blew me away.”

“When my grandparents who I lived with in my teenage years told me it was probably in the attic, I went up there and found a treasure trove of old 78s”. This discovery and the path it took him on was to change his life. “I had really long hair as was the style but I went to a barber and got it all cut off and made in to a 50s style” “I still had two years left at school and I must have looked so different.” Living with his grandparents also had other advantages he was soon to discover. “They had all my uncles old suit and clothes from the 40s and 50s” “They never through any thing away, when I went back to school after the summer holidays I had a one button blazer, a narrow tie, drainpipe trousers and patent leather black shoes, I just looked like a 50s throw back.”

The Impact of 'The Blues'

This change in his life was also starting to affect the music he was now hunting out. No longer was chart music or the sounds of the day satisfying him he went looking for where it all began in the fateful program… Blues. He was to discover a whole new world of genres , bands and artists, from Alex Harvey to Lynyrd Skynyrd, Miles Davis to Cream, John Lee Hooker to AC/DC, Led Zeppelin to Muddy Waters. But one name kept coming up “yeah Willie Dixon, he seemed to be very important and he was a bass player” He’d recall.

This stayed with him till he left school and left the world of Classical music forever. “Everything I done in music so far was with grants and scholarships because my family had no money to pay for the musical education I was being given” “They never let me forget it, always telling me how lucky I was and I should be more thankful for all the help I was getting” “I was always been tested to make sure I was up to scratch, having to justify my ability , which made me feel like an outsider.” He recalled his first encounter with the SSYO “ I walked in to the concert room in Paisley with my Tenor horn in a plastic Tesco carrier bag and came face to face with all these kids, smartly dressed kids with instruments in fitted cases .” “I just should not have been there, and when they found out ''I was there on a grant, well you can imagine how I felt”

But for two years he went on a Saturday morning to Paisley to the SSYO learning music and how it works. It would only be years later that what he learned there would make sense in his playing as he sought to do all the thing an Orchestral bass section does not only from the brass, but the woodwind and strings and apply it to electric bass..

The discipline of playing Classical music and all it entails is one of the biggest part in his playing philosophy and playing style. He would later explain “In an orchestra you have a job and you do it”

“You don’t up your part or change it, you are there for the whole orchestra.”

“If to you your part might seem small or un-important, you don’t understand the piece your playing, its not about you its about the music.”

That’s what you get when you listen to his playing, a feeling its not about what he playing or how he’s playing its about the whole piece of music. If you watch him for long enough and in different playing situation , over time you start to realise he can surprise or ambush your preconceptions of him as a player.

The Bass Player Emerges

That statement gives us a glimpse in to his thinking. He does not play complicated over constructed bass parts just because he can, he plays what the song requires, its still about the music even after all these years. He plays as part of something ,a rhythm section in a band.

“I have always had the good fortune to play with fantastic drummers, they are what makes a band work”

“My first bass was a precision bass copy and I have never had any reason to change from that.” His old battered precision is as much a part of him as is his old Ampeg combo. Trends will come and go, new instruments will become the fashion as will new sounds but one thing that will never change is the way a bass player thinks, the way he understands the job he has to do “ its the way we think that makes a bass player, not technique, not style, but the way we think” is how he sums up bass playing.

“When I got my first bass I had no amp, I used to push the head stock against the wooden furniture in the house an play my songs and scale studies.” “I realised that how I held the bass against my body affected the way it sounded, my bedroom door was my amp for years, and as all I had was the resonance of the bass and the furniture and no amp to get in the way I could feel and hear the pure tone of the bass I was creating.” ”that probably accounts for the power and note definition I get in my playing, as I generate it at source and the Ampeg just amplifies it” The style and set up of his hands on the bass is much admired as it is smooth and easy looking but that hide the ferociousness of his playing, “ yes my bass has scared a lot of people who try it, because of the heavy flat wound strings and high action.”

“Its all about the feel, its the tone and sound to other players, but to me its about the feel I get from my bass.” “tone will change depending on the venue or the context you play in, too much bass and you get lost in the kit, to much top and you get lost in the guitars and metal(cymbals), if there is a piano or organ there you will clash with the right hand and so on, but feel is always there and is always the same.”

Lost in the 70s and 80s

Back home in Scotland at the end of the 70’s he played and jammed in the West of Scotland music scene where the jazz fusion period of the time saw his playing become influenced by players like Jeff Berlin, Stanley Clarke, Tim Bogart, Steve Swallow, Billy Cobham, Jeff Beck, ultimately leading him to lose his way and give up playing. A move to London in the early 80s as a sound engineer and roadie, lasted about a year and it saw him go back to playing in many of the recording studios in London and regular visits to the legendary Nomis studios in Shepherds Bush where he found his way again.“going back to basics was what I did, I went back to playing bass as part of something, turned my back on popular music for a second time in his life and went back to the blues”

Back on Track

He recalls some words of wisdom from Motorhead bassist Lemmy “ If you have more than 20 people turn up at a gig…you’re commercial” is what he told me about blues music and at that time he was not far wrong, but a Texas Tornado was about to change all that.

At the other end of the decade he with the rest of Booze’n’Blooze where he played with Steve ’Cupsy’ Cutmore for the first time, would top the UK s search for the best Unsigned Blues band and go on to release three albums, then in the late 90s he joined Groove Doctors a band made up of the finest players on the East Anglian Blues scene, releasing three more albums and being regarded as one of the most original blues bands around on the European scene, and go from strength to strength.

Success

Picking up awards and accolades as he went into and past the Millennium, working as a guest for various artists from the USA and back full circle after 20 years to rejoin Steve ‘Cupsey’ Cutmore as part of the Rhythm section of Hokie Joint.

In a career that has spanned over thirty five years and seen him pick up numerous awards, he has played from one side of the world to the other, playing to “tables and chairs big nights out” in pubs and clubs or concert arenas that hold thousands and festivals that number tens of thousands he remains one of the busiest bass players around and is always in demand as a player, teacher, or someone just to have a beer with.

Fergie has had the pleasure in the last 35 years of recording, playing, jamming and sharing a stage with in no particular order;

Groove Doctors, Greg Wright, Booze’n’ Blooze, Chuck Berry, Dr Feelgood, Nine Below Zero, Buddy Whittington, Kim Wilson, Green, Kingdom, Rockin’Armadillos, Duran Duran,, The Honeycombs, Frankie Millar, Diamond Head, John Martyn, King, Screamin’ Lord Such, Jessie ‘Guitar’ Taylor, Phil Hilbourne, John Cooper Clarke, Lightnin’ Willie, Jools Holland, Jack Bruce, Denny Newman, Guthrie Govan, Sean Webster, Buddy Guy, SYSO, Koko Taylor, Gary Moore, Jimmy Reed, Maggie Bell, Jimmy Dewar, Owen Barrie, Brian Robertson, Nikko Mc Brain, Max Middleton, Sam Kelly, Rory Gallacher, Wishbone Ash , Automatic Slim, The Scorpions, Reg Webb,…

and so on and on and on........

You can find out more about Fergie on his personal myspace page;