Who is adam blackstone

Definitely Derrick Hodge, a good friend of mine. He taught me how to balance life, family, work, music and have a good relationship with God. All these are essential elements in life and we always need to be reminded of. My latest bass is the new Fender Ultra , which I used during the Superbowl halftime show as well. Other than that I use a Fender 69 P-bass. We always work together and exchange ideas organically.

We always grow as individuals and as a team and I believe that is what brings the ideas on the table, just exchanging and interacting with each other. Firstly, being part of any video, especially one shot by a prestigious, historic company like Fender is nerve-racking. I definitely had a great time and I always thank Fender for trusting me to be in their video.

Regarding the Ultra bass. I love the new noiseless pickups as well as the neck! It is definitely a fast-playing neck! The D shape makes for comfortable and effortless soloing, comping, even chord playing. Visit online at adamblackstone. More Bass Player Interviews. Anthony Muthurajah… I am always excited to talk to bassists from around the world and when By David C.

He wants to do a big farewell concert. That was huge, man. So, he had tapped The Roots to be his backup band and then, tapped Amir [Questlove] to do his farewell concert. It was a great experience. It expanded so much. It was a lot of stars coming through there, man, just wanting to be part of it. It was a lot of Jay re-learning some of his old raps. There was a lot of us reworking some of the music, so that it fit from song to song.

So, it was a big production that can't really be replicated because it was a time and a moment to say, ' This Black Album , he's out of here. Were there one or two songs JAY-Z rehearsed that never made it to the stage and that you wished did? I'm going to get killed for this.

But, all JAY's songs with Amil. They had some bangers. We rehearsed those songs like one time [for the retirement show] and then, they just went away laughs. When you're 70 years old and your kids want to hear about the time you played during JAY-Z's retirement show , what will stick out in your memory the most?

The main thing I can remember that still sticks [out] to me today is the relationships that I built just being in that process. I got my next gig from that. I met this kid with a pink Polo from the Chi. He said, 'Yo, I like the way you sound. I like the way you play. You should work with me. I got an album coming out. What's your name? Also, Just Blaze came in to DJ.

I've worked with him now for the past 16 years based off of that one experience. Swizz Beatz, as well. That process developed a lot of core relationships for me and put my face out there because it turned into a movie. How long did that take to go from idea to stage? My boy got the call for the Super Bowl. Automatically, we went into brainstorm mode of who, if anybody, to invite out with us.

It was just kind of like, 'JAY-Z? Nah, maybe not. He can do his own thing. Do we be ambitious and call Ms. Jackson back, showing how y'all peaced it up? So, let's not necessarily do that. When we brainstormed on the idea about Prince , it was really more of a nostalgic thing being in Minnesota, than it was let's just do Prince. You know what I mean? Super Bowl is in Atlanta this year.

I can't say that we would have done it if it was another city. I reached out to Troy Carter, who is now the estate president for Prince. I explained to him the idea that I came up with, which was really to not do no hologram or nothing like that.

It was really to have Prince play with us. It wasn't just play to a CD or nothing like that. If you really watch that performance, our band and Justin himself were backing up Prince, sonically. Troy went back to the estate, they was with it. I got the files, and then, it was my job after that to just fit it in.

Those were his master vocals only. It was like our band was playing with Prince. Yeah, for a moment. That was definitely what we were trying to convey. His music is timeless. That was his city. He represented Minneapolis everywhere he went. It was really cool to bring that purple energy, that purple power, for that moment. As show-stopping of a moment that it was, we still, on a music tip, fit him within the context of Justin's set.

We didn't venture off of anything that we were going to do. We didn't do a random music break, and it just stopped, and now Prince appeared. We were playing our song and in the middle of it, the surprise was Prince is now doing a duet with J. This is always one of my favorite shows. The Soul Train Awards has always been special to me to embrace our culture, embrace our blackness, embrace our soul.

It becomes frantic, at times, only because it's at a time of the year when a lot of people are on tour and working.

So, sometimes we don't know who is confirmed until the very last minute. That makes me have to scramble extra hard to get arrangements, personnel, program files, and stuff like that.

A show of this magnitude would take me approximately two to three weeks to prepare. I do a lot of preproduction ahead of time just knowing what the theme of the show is. This year was 90s with Tisha Campbell and Tichina Arnold. For the Soul Train Music Awards, were there things that didn't air that were filmed? Or maybe things you had planned that never got shot?

Yeah, it was so hard. Erykah Badu, she got the Legend award. She is the type of artist, man, she goes off the cuff. She did about an minute performance that we had to dwindle down for television to nine. We did two other songs, and we did an extended version of 'Tyrone' that only that room, that night, got to see.

You're able to work with so many different generations of artists and still get down their essence. One person you worked with and really recaptured his magic was Eminem. You helped him return to the festival stages after a long hiatus. What was that like and how did it happen? From around that point, [Questlove and Eminem] kept in touch. Amir [Questlove] put me on to Eminem and said, 'This is my young boy.

At the turn of the millennium, he adopted Philadelphia as his new home, relocating there to attend the prestigious University of the Arts. Attending school in Philly, he started to get known around town playing local gigs and open mics. One of his frequent haunts was a Tuesday night jam session at a place called the Five Spot, put together by the Roots. From there, he began working with high profile clients, easing into an MD position with some of them.

The firm casts a wide net, offering assistance with live and studio music production, staffing and artist development. BBE was an endeavor born of necessity. Eventually that strategy turned into a company. Staff members are vetted thoroughly to assure clients get the quality they expect. When it comes to equipment, Blackstone has quite a collection of axes: several Ibanezes, including Soundgears and a BTB; a Lakland ; and some Fender jazz basses—just to name a few. Gallien-Krueger has been his amp maker of choice for some time.

A religious man, Blackstone is also thankful to God, without whom, he says, none of his success would be possible.