Eric Gale (September 20, 1938 – May 25, 1994) – Red Ground Funk (1975)

The prolific session guitarist wrote, produced, and played lead guitar on this super funky jam from his Negril LP which also featured Peter Tosh.

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Eric Gale was a prolific session guitarist who played on hundreds of jazz and R&B records during the 1960s, 70s and 80s. He was part of CTI Records’ house band, helping create the label’s classic jazz-funk albums by artists including Bob James, Freddie Hubbard, and Grover Washington, Jr., and was a member of the jazz-funk supergroup Stuff.

Born in the Bedford–Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn in New York City, Gale began playing the guitar at age 12. In high school, he visited John Coltrane’s home and sat in on jam sessions.

During the early 70s he began working as a session guitarist for Creed Taylor’s label CTI Records. Gale released his debut solo LP Forecast on the CTI subsidiary Kudu Records in 1973. It was the first of a dozen albums he released as a solo artist over the next three decades. But as a sideman, he played on hundreds more.

Some of the artists whose classic LP’s he appeared on included Ashford & Simpson, Patti Austin, George Benson, Ron Carter, Hank Crawford, the Fania All-Stars, Roberta Flack, Freddie Hubbard, Bob James, Quincy Jones, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Yusef Lateef, Van McCoy, David “Fathead” Newman, Esther Phillips, Diana Ross, David Ruffin, Mongo Santamaria, Stanley Turrentine, and many others.

In 1975, he produced, arranged, and wrote almost all of a very funky album titled Negril that was recorded in Kingston, Jamaica. It featured some of the island’s top musicians of the time, like Peter Tosh on rhythm guitar and Ashton Barrett on bass.

The album was one of the last projects Peter Tosh played on after the Wailers broke up in 1973 but before the start of his own solo recording career with the release of his solo debut LP Legalize It in 1976. According to a 2008 interview with the album’s executive producer Michael Johnston, Tosh only played rhythm guitar on one track, “I Shot The Sheriff,” but it is unclear whether this is accurate, since rhythm guitar can be heard on several other tracks as well.

One of Negril’s highlights was the fantastic funky jam “Red Ground Funk,” which opened the album’s second side. Besides Tosh, Barrett, and Gale (on lead guitar), the LP also featured Richard Tee on piano (one of Gale’s future bandmates in Stuff), Cedric Brooks on saxophone, Leslie Butler on organ and synthesizer, and drummer Sparrow Martin.

Gale became a member of the jazz-funk supergroup Stuff in the mid-seventies alongside Gordon Edwards on bass guitar, keyboardist Richard Tee, Cornell Dupree on guitar, and Chris Parker on drums, who was later replaced by Steve Gadd. The group originally formed after a session date at Van Gelder Studios backing Queen Esther Marrow, who subsequently used them for a live performance at a club called Mikell’s in Manhattan. It was such a successful night that they began a residency there by themselves. As Edwards recalled years later, “Mikell's was packed, wall to wall, round the block.” Gale and Gadd both came by to sit in with them on different nights, and they became part of the band.

The group’s original name was The Encyclopaedia of Soul. When Warner Brothers wanted to sign them, the label vetoed that name as being too long. It was changed to Stuff at the suggestion of Dupree’s wife Erma, who said, “You know Gordon, you always call everybody stuff, I don't care who it is. You should call the band Stuff.”

They played the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1976 and laid down a supremely funky set, including the superb jam “How Long Will It Last.” Gale wrote it for their self titled debut album, released earlier that same year.

#jazz #funk #Stuff #PeterTosh #EricGale