He will be honored with the 2025 San Diego Music Awards Lifetime Achievement Award, just one day after flying back from his eight-concert run with Eric Clapton in Tokyo.
How busy has the past month been for 2025 San Diego Music Awards Lifetime Achievement honoree Nathan East, whose 2,000-plus recording credits include albums with such varied artists as B.B. King, Dolly Parton, The Weeknd, Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, Beyoncé, Daft Punk, Herbie Hancock, Barbra Streisand, George Harrison, Michael Jackson, Wayne Shorter and Whitney Houston?
So busy that East, a graduate of Crawford High School and UC San Diego, is flying in from Japan for the April 29 awards ceremony at Humphreys Concerts by the Bay. Next Sunday, he concludes an eight-concert run at the storied Nippon Budokan in Tokyo with three-time Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee Eric Clapton. East has anchored nearly every band the English guitar legend has led, in concert and on record, for the past 40 years.
And so busy that this month has seen the release of both the Laney DB-EAST Signature Bass Head amplifier and of “Father Son,” East’s first duo album with his 24-year-old offspring, keyboardist and singer Noah East.
The two were recently the artists-in-residence at the 2025 edition of the annual Mr. M’s Jazz Festival in Baden-Baden, Germany. They will perform together Tuesday at Humphreys, where the eclectic bassist has previously appeared with Kenny Loggins, Al Jarreau, Sam Moore, Dave Koz and Fourplay, the chart-topping pop-jazz band East co-founded in 1990 with Bob James, Lee Ritenour and Harvey Mason.
“It’s a huge honor to receive this award,” said East, 69. “I would have thought I was too young to receive it, but I guess they’re saying: ‘You’ve been around long enough to get it!’ “
The nonprofit San Diego Music Foundation, under whose auspices the awards are held, was very eager to honor East. It pushed back this year’s event by a week to avoid conflicting with his Tokyo concerts with Clapton, whom East will tour Europe with in May and June. They will perform concerts in the U.S. in September.
‘Rock ‘n’ roll royalty!’
In between his recent performances in Germany and Japan, East played in England at Clapton’s 80th birthday celebration.
The invitation-only event saw this veteran bass great provide a nimble musical foundation for a four-guitarist lineup that included Clapton, Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones, Allman Brothers Band alum Derek Trucks and Fabulous Thunderbirds alum Jimmy Vaughan. Attendees included Ringo Starr, Steve Winwood, Pete Townshend and John McLaughlin.
“It was literally like rock ‘n’ roll royalty!” said East, who also counts Starr and Winwood among his many collaborators.
“There were hundreds of people there, including my wife, Anita, current and former Clapton band members, tour managers, concert promoters… It was literally like ‘This Is Your Life’ for Eric. His daughter, Ruth, sang ‘You Were There,’ which Eric wrote, and it was a very heartwarming way to start the evening.”
Tuesday’s awards ceremony will be something of a “This Is Your Life” moment for East, who — in a video filmed last week in Tokyo for the San Diego Music Awards — was hailed by Clapton as: “The man I lean on and have leaned on for as long as I can remember now. He is, in my opinion, as good a bass player as the world has ever seen and I depend on him 100 percent for pitch, for time and for good humor.”
In the same film, an awed Phil Collins says of East: “It would be great if he actually wrote down a list of all the tracks he played on where you think: ‘My god, that was him. ‘My god, that was him. ‘My god, that was him.’ “
If East were to compile such a list, it would be voluminous. At his busiest point as a top-call studio musician in Los Angeles, where he moved in 1979, he was doing up to 28 different recording sessions a week.
Some of the chart-topping songs East has performed on include Collins and Philip Bailey’s “Easy Lover” (which East co-wrote), Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven” and “Change the World,” Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky,” Anita Baker’s “Giving You The Best That I Got,” Kenny Loggins’ “Footloose,” Whitney Houston’s “Saving All My Love For You” and Michael Jackson’s “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You.”
“He’s the most supportive and caring musician I’ve met,” Clapton said of East in a 2005 Union-Tribune interview.
Live Aid, Rock in Rio
The list of Grammy Award-winning songs and albums East has been featured on is considerably longer.
Or as singer-songwriter Loggins put it in a March 10 post on his Facebook page: “Nathan East is one of my favorite professional musicians, and among the most recorded bass players in history.”
Only two other electric bassists — Carol Kaye and Leeland Sklar — have as many, or more, credits to their name. Both are older than East; Kaye is 90, Sklar nearly 78.
Neither can match East’s high-profile concert appearances, which in 1985 alone included Live Aid in Philadelphia (where he performed with Loggins) and Rock in Rio in Brazil (where he performed with Jarreau). Both Live Aid and Rock in Rio were telecast live to millions of viewers in dozens of countries.
“There were 400,000 people in the audience in Rio and it was just incredible,” East said.
His multitude of recording credits also include albums Elton John, Al Jarreau, Chaka Khan, the Pointer Sisters, Amy Grant, Sergio Mendes, Peter Frampton and Michael McDonald, plus such Motown music favorites as Diana Ross, Gladys Knight & The Pips, The Four Tops and Lionel Richie.
In addition, East has recorded with Bonnie Raitt, Peter Gabriel, Joe Pass, Dusty Springfield, America, Randy Newman, The Tubes, Joe Cocker, Eurthymics, The Manhattan Transfer, Seal, Andrea Bocelli, Pharrell Williams, former Valley Center resident JJ Cale. and former Ocean Beach resident Rickie Lee Jones. He is very likely the only bassist whose credits also range from Les Paul, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Joe Satriani, The Bee Gees, Boz Scaggs, Bette Midler and Shania Twain to Mary J. Blige, Placido Domingo, Diana Krall, Rod Stewart, Backstreet Boys, Genesis, Bobby Brown, Gloria Trevi, Toto, Ringo Starr, Judas Priest and Fabio.
“George Benson wanted to do a recording session with Nathan back in the 1980s, but Nathan had other commitments,” recalled ace San Diego drummer Ronnie Stewart, who began playing with East here when both were in their teens. “George told Nathan he would wait until he was available. That’s how impressed George was with him.”
Benson wasn’t the only one who had to wait.
When legendary producer, arranger, songwriter and solo artist Quincy Jones asked East to record on Michael Jackson’s “Off The Wall” album in the late 1970s, the invitation was reluctantly turned down.
“Quincy called me the day I was leaving to go on tour with Kenny Loggins, so I had to decline that one, which was tough to turn down,” East recalled, speaking from his San Fernando Valley home.
“But Quincy called me back after the tour and we worked a lot together on his albums and albums by people he produced, like Patti Austin and James Ingram. Quincy ended up being like a brother to me.”
San Diego roots
A Philadelphia native, this long-acclaimed musician was not yet in grade school when his family moved to San Diego after his engineer father, Thomas East, became an aircraft designer for General Dynamics.
Art and culture were often front and center in the East household, where Nathan’s six siblings included sisters Cecilia and Gertrude and brothers Raymond, David, James and Marcel. James, who has sometimes subbed on bass for his famous brother at concerts with Clapton, will join Nathan, his son Noah and drummer Donald Barrett at Tuesday’s performance.
“Pretty much everybody in my family was musical,” Nathan East recalled. “Ray, who is now a priest in Washington, D.C., sang. Gertrude played French horn and flute. David and Marcel both still play guitar. James lives in Fallbrook and is the music director for Sully Sullivan’s band.”
Before he took up the bass, East started as a cellist while attending Horace Mann Junior High. Two of his earliest musical epiphanies occurred soon thereafter.
The first came when he watched a “Peanuts” TV special that featured pianist Vince Guaraldi’s jazzy instrumental, “Linus and Lucy.” The second came when he tagged along with two of his brothers, David and Ray, to a rehearsal for a folk-music mass at Christ The King Catholic Church.
Almost as if by divine providence, there was an electric bass guitar perched by the altar. East asked his brothers if he could play it and they agreed. He became the bassist in the folk-music mass band the same day.
“That’s where it all started,” East said.
The bass guitar in question was a Gibson EB-3. By very serendipitous coincidence, that’s the same bass model Jack Bruce played in the 1960s alongside Clapton in the pioneering English rock power trio Cream, whose repertoire included “Badge” and “Sunshine of Your Love.” Both are songs the teenaged East learned in San Diego — and that he still plays today on tour with Clapton.
“Wow. I hadn’t made that connection, but it becomes more cosmic by the day!” East said. “This is the very reason that I am a believer; these things you couldn’t make up if you tried!”
Powering up
Several significant developments unfolded during East’s time at Crawford. He did his first recording session — at age 14 — with classmate and future Christian musical vocal star Sandi Patty and her family group The Patty Family.
East was taken under the wing of an older student, Gunnar Biggs, who went on to become one of San Diego’s leading jazz bassists and worked with such international talents as Mose Allison.
“Gunnar was my first bass guru. He actually gave me an upright bass and was one of my early inspirations,” said East, who took to the bass with the aplomb and dedication that are still his trademarks. “Gunnar has been so supportive over the years. He’s still one of my favorite musicians.”
It was while at Crawford High that East joined some fellow students in the brassy, jazz-tinged funk band Power. The group included such budding musical standouts as saxophonist Hollis Gentry III and keyboardist Carl Evans, Jr. — both now deceased — who in the 1980s made a national impact in the smooth-jazz band Fattburger.
Power was so accomplished that it was hired as the house band for an early 1970s San Diego Sports Arena concert featuring such soul-music stars as Barry White and Rufus & Carla Thomas.
White promptly hired Power to become his Love Unlimited Orchestra. He took them out on a tour that included shows at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and Madison Square Garden in New York. East, who had graduated early from high school, was just 16. His biggest bass inspirations at the time included Motown Records studio legend James Jamerson, Chuck Raney, Monk Montgomery, Ray Brown, Earth, Wind & Fire’s Verdine White and Tower of Power’s Rocco Prestia.
“We toured with Barry and recorded with him. When we played at Cobo Hall in Detroit, I got to meet James Jamerson and I was tongue-tied,” recalled East, who in 1973 enrolled at UC San Diego.
It was at the La Jolla campus that East met his future wife, Anita, who was then a pre-med student. She became a pediatrician after graduating. The East’s twin children, Noah and Sara, will turn 25 on May 11.
“I was smitten the first time I saw Anita,” East said. “We were married in 1995 and will celebrate out 30th wedding anniversary in July.”
Key mentors at UCSD
East was only three weeks from graduation in 1978 when fusion-jazz guitar giant John McLaughlin phoned and invited him to be the bassist in McLaughlin’s new band. East was thrilled — and conflicted.
“Every one of my friends told me I should take the gig,” he said. “I called my grandmother, and she said: ‘If you do one thing for me, finish college.’ So, I turned John down. We had a good laugh about it when I saw him this month at Eric Clapton’s 80th birthday.”
East credits two of his UCSD music professors, Cecil Lytle and Bertram Turetzky, for having a profound impact on his life.
“Both of them are mentors and dear friends,” said East, who was the bassist in top local band The People Movers during his senior year of college and for a year after his graduation. He moved to L.A. in 1979 after Turetzky told him to make a name for himself.
“I wanted to start in the master’s program at UCSD,” East said. “Bert told me: ‘No. Go to L.A., start working and make us proud.’ “
That is exactly what East did, after moving into a converted garage in Burbank.
Word of his musical skill and versatility spread quickly. In 1981, East was featured on nearly two dozen albums by everyone from Barry White, Kenny Rogers and Billy Preston to saxophonist Stanley Turrentine, guitarist Earl Klugh and the soundtrack to the film “Endless Love.”
“I’ll never forget my first session in L.A.,” East said. “It was a Hertz advertising jingle produced by Gene Page, who I had done some Barry White recordings with. The band was Lee Ritenour and Ray Parker Jr. on guitars, James Gadson on drums, Sonny Burke on keyboards and me. I was welcomed with open arms.”
That was no surprise.
East can quickly adapt to any stylistic setting, thanks to his instrumental command and great feel. He enhances and elevates the music at hand by playing to — and for — each song, not to show off. Former Beatle Ringo Starr is just one of many artists quick to sing East’s praises.
“With Nathan, we’ve come to a place now where I only call him when I want bass on (at least) three tunes, because he does them all in half an hour!” Starr said in a 2023 Union-Tribune interview. “So, I wait ‘till we’ve got a couple of songs for him to record on, not just one, because he is such a fine bass player.”
Another key to East’s enduring success is his consistent warmth and congeniality.
‘Gentle, generous’
“When I realized how accomplished and famous Nathan is, I was really impressed by his humility,” said UCSD Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla, He is a close friend of East, who has been on the university’s Board of Regents since 2020.
“The fact that Nathan’s an alum of UCSD makes me extremely proud,” Khosla said, speaking by phone last week from India. “He is so gentle, generous and polite, in addition to being super talented. I can’t think of anyone more deserving of a lifetime achievement award.”
Similar sentiments are expressed by San Diego’s Matt Swanson, who is Eric Clapton’s longtime tour manager
“I have traveled the world with Nathan for the past 15 years and consider him a close friend,” Swanson said, via email from Tokyo.
“He is a great man and we bonded right away on the first Clapton tour I did with him. For a musician with such an incredible resumé, Nathan could have some diva qualities — and rightfully so — but he doesn’t. He is one of the most humble, low-key artists I know. You can tell he is grateful for every opportunity to play. It doesn’t matter if it’s a stadium in São Paulo, Brazil, or at the Belly Up in Solana Beach, Nathan gives everything on stage.”
Before flying out to Japan, East spoke with infectious enthusiasm about his four-decade-plus musical relationship with Clapton. The guitarist performs on two songs on Nathan and Noah East’s new “Father Son” album, which also features guest performances by vocal powerhouse Merry Clayton, jazz flute giant Hubert Laws and others.
“Eric and I first worked together in 1983 and he’s one of the most sensitive musicians I’ve ever played with. He really appreciates music that comes from the heart, and so do I,” East said.
“My faith is very important to me and I don’t start or end a day without being in prayer. I literally feel like I’ve been blessed beyond belief.”
The 2025 San Diego Music Awards
Featuring performances by: Nathan East, Almost Monday, Miniaturized, Euphoria Brass Band, MohaviSoul, Matthew Phillips, The Tourmaliners
When: 7 pm. Tuesday, April 29
Where: Humphreys Concerts by the Bay, 2241 Shelter Island Drive, Shelter Island
Tickets: $42.80 (general admission), $130.35 (reserved VIP seating)
Online: sandiegomusicawards
