Sunday, September 15, 2013

Hugh McDonald reflects on his musical career

Bon Jovi bass player Hugh McDonald spoke to The Park Record about his career. It's not often you get to hear from Huey, but this was a nice read:
Hugh McDonald fully supported his stepson Jake Johnson's desire to sell some CDs to raise money for the Rockport fire victims last month.

McDonald hosted a party at his home in Hoytsville where Johnson's band played and sold some CDs, raising more than $1,000. (See story entitled "Hoytsville resident Jake Johnson's world is music").

McDonald understands the need to do good things with music because he is a professional bass player who has appeared on records by Willie Nelson, Cher, Gladys Knight & the Pips, John Prine and Steve Goodman.

The bassist, whose ongoing gig is with multi-platinum-selling rock band Bon Jovi, said he was inspired to play music because of the Beatles.

"I saw them on the 'Ed Sullivan Show' because I'm that old," McDonald said with a grin during an interview in his home office in Hoytsville. "I saw them and that did it, and for me, Paul McCartney is 100 percent the reason why I play bass to this day."

Growing up in Philadelphia also helped feed McDonald's love of music.

"I don't even know if you can call music a hobby for me then, because our neighborhood kids just did it," he said. "We put bands together or played music, and everything grew from that."

McDonald would drive to New York for recording sessions and was referred from one job to the next.

Read the full article here.

3 comments:

  1. A great article. And Hugh is a great musician. One of the nicest guys you could ever meet. Very nice to the fans when he's approached.

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  2. An interesting comment from Hugh in the article about having to get along with people you wouldn't ordinarily get along with... wonder if he is talking about any members of the band?

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  3. Wonder if you should speculate about every word somebody says, like it's some kind of scripted shit. It's not about the band, he works with Jon for the last 19 years, you know...

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Thanks for giving me your time.