Beyond the Boardroom Tony Saunders, bassist, recording artist and producer
By Rosie Padilla
“It just spoke to me,” Tony Saunders says when asked why he suddenly decided to pick up the bass guitar after training to be a pianist like his father Merl, a notable Bay Area musician and longtime collaborator of Jerry Garcia. Tony, now 69, graduated from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music with a focus on piano—so you can imagine how shocked his father was about his sudden transition to bass. Growing up around music and learning how to play instruments from some of the top performers of the time, Tony knew he was destined to be a musician. Often, while his dad, Garcia and their bandmates were rehearsing, Tony was able to sit in on the last song of the night, picking up bassist John Kahn’s style of playing. Not many 17-year-olds can brag about playing bass with famous rockers. “I didn’t realize the enormity of it because I was just a kid and I grew up around it,” says Saunders.
Tell me about your first gig. My first gig was at the End of the Beginning in Cotati. We were driving there from San Francisco because that’s where we lived at the time. First of all, I knew something was up because my dad said, “You need to bring your bass.” And I was wondering why I had to bring my own when I could just use [John Kahn’s]. Halfway from San Francisco to Cotati, my dad goes, “Tony, John isn’t going to be These days, Tony can be found either playing bass, producing musicians or writing music for TV and film. Beyond music, the long-time Mill Valley resident (he now lives in Hercules) is a proud father of six, and even prouder grandpa of 17 grandkids. To hear Tony’s music and check out his upcoming gigs go to tonysaunders.com .
there today… You are going to play the whole gig.” I was 17. Any projects you worked on with the Grateful Dead? [In 1985] I worked on the Twilight Zone TV show with them. What does the process look like when you are writing a song?
I hear the whole song completely…My first hit record was an R&B song called “When Will My Love Be Right?” and I usually don’t write the words and the song at the same time. [For this song] I wrote the words and the piano part at the same time. Is there a song you wish you could’ve written? Any of the Beatles’ songs. Which artist was your favorite to perform with? My dad, hands down. Did you really coach sports in the North Bay? I coached high school football at [Tamalpais High School]. I was there when Tupac was there. So, I saw him before he went to Digital Underground. And they would do these rap battles at lunch time, there was this group called 5150 and they were against Tupac—it was great. Do you find bass lines under-appreciated in songwriting? I agree with that because the bass decides what kind of song it is. If it’s a country bass line then it’s country music, if it’s a jazz bass line then it’s jazz, [if] it’s an R&B bass line then it's R&B and so on and so forth. It completely shapes a song. You can’t copywrite bass lines and there are so many songs in every genre that the bass line is what makes you remember the song. Does performing get easier over time? I still get nervous before a gig. I’ve been playing for 55 years. But I know after I play the first note I’m cool. A fun fact about you?
Sly Stone gave me an organ when I was 10 years old. Which genre do you find the hardest to play?
Jazz is the hardest, like straight ahead jazz where people are counting off the tempos that are so fast. Everything else I can do…you just have to be able to put your soul into [the music]. Why is music so important? Music is a mood swinger. For example, we go to church to hear the word, but music is what gets you in the mood to hear the word.
Duncan Garrett Photography
66 NorthBaybiz
April 2025
Made with FlippingBook. PDF to flipbook with ease