First things first: The bassist on 1968’s Hair: Original Broadway Cast Recording [RCA] was Jimmy Lewis, who was the original bass player on the show—which had the band set up onstage rather than in a pit. Lewis was an upright bassist first, but he became known for his R&B, soul, and blues electric bass playing. His recording credits include Count Basie, Grant Green, the Modern Jazz Quartet, soul-jazzers Lou Donaldson and Richard “Groove” Holmes, and R&B legends Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Solomon Burke, and John Hammond. Perhaps Lewis’s most prominent gig was with saxophonist King Curtis, where he preceded Chuck Rainey and Jerry Jemmott. Lewis did numerous albums and tours with Curtis, and that’s how he first met Hair composer/musical director/keyboardist Galt McDermott.

It was Wilbur Bascomb, one of Jimmy Lewis’s subs on the original Broadway show, who provided the low end for the soundtrack of the 1979 film version. Bascomb, who may be best known for his work on Jeff Beck’s Wired (see January ’06), recalls the session: “It was August 1978, at A&R Studios, which used to be on 48th Street in New York. On the date with me were Galt McDermott, [drummer] Bernard Purdie, and [guitarist] Charlie Brown. It was rhythm section only, and the film’s director, Milos Forman, was sitting in the booth. I used my ’66 P-Bass, which has an added Bartolini J-Bass bridge pickup, and the studio had an Ampeg B-15 up on a sectional chair. I remember embellishing the charts because I knew the music so well from subbing on the show.” In late September 2007, Bascomb and Purdie joined McDermott in the band for a three-night 40th-Anniversary performance of Hair at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park.

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