Bruce Lynch (born 1 June 1948, in
New Zealand
New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...
) is an electric and
acoustic bassist,
producer and
arranger
In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orchestrat ...
.
Music career
Arriving in the UK in the mid-1970s, Lynch became a commercially successful
session musician
A session musician (also known as studio musician or backing musician) is a musician hired to perform in a recording session or a live performance. The term sideman is also used in the case of live performances, such as accompanying a reco ...
, touring extensively with
Cat Stevens
Yusuf Islam (born Steven Demetre Georgiou; ), commonly known by his stage names Cat Stevens, Yusuf, and Yusuf / Cat Stevens, is a British singer-songwriter and musician. He has sold more than 100 million records and has more than two billion st ...
, including Stevens's 1976 Earth Tour as a
sideman
A sideman is a professional musician who is hired to perform live with a solo artist, or with a group in which they are not a regular band member. The term is usually used to describe musicians that play with jazz or rock artists, whether solo o ...
that was recorded as the album/DVD, ''
Majikat'', released in 2004; he appeared on six of Steven's albums. His wife
Suzanne Lynch
Suzanne Joy Lynch (née Donaldson, born 11 December 1950) is a New Zealand singer who has worked professionally under the names Suzanne Donaldson, Suzanne Lynch and Suzanne.
Career
Lynch first came to wide public knowledge in the 1960s as hal ...
sang backing vocals for much of this time. He also recorded on two albums for
Richard Thompson, and an album with
Rick Wakeman
Richard Christopher Wakeman (born 18 May 1949) is an English keyboardist and composer best known as a member of the progressive rock band Yes across five tenures between 1971 and 2004, and for his prolific solo career. AllMusic describes Wakema ...
as well as on
Chris Rea
Christopher Anton Rea ( ; born 4 March 1951) is a British Rock music, rock and blues singer-songwriter and guitarist from Middlesbrough. Known for his distinctive voice and his slide guitar playing, Rea has recorded twenty-five studio albums, ...
's 1980 album
''Tennis'' and on
Kate Bush
Catherine Bush (born 30 July 1958) is an English singer, songwriter, record producer, and dancer. Bush began writing songs at age 11. She was signed to EMI Records after David Gilmour of Pink Floyd helped produce a demo tape. In 1978, at the ...
's
debut album. While in the UK, he was also an early member of British
jazz fusion
Jazz fusion (also known as jazz rock, jazz-rock fusion, or simply fusion) is a popular music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric gui ...
band
Morrissey–Mullen
Morrissey–Mullen were a British jazz-funk/fusion group of the 1970s and 1980s.
Considered one of the most popular jazz groups in London, the band was led by Dick Morrissey on tenor and soprano saxes and flute, and Jim Mullen on guitar, who ...
, together with fellow New Zealand session musician
Frank Gibson, Jr. on drums.
Returning to New Zealand in 1981, he started arranging and orchestrating for New Zealand television and jazz ensembles. He later became a record producer, producing, amongst others,
Kiri te Kanawa
Dame Kiri Jeanette Claire Te Kanawa (; born Claire Mary Teresa Rawstron, 6 March 1944) is a New Zealand opera singer. She had a full lyric soprano voice, which has been described as "mellow yet vibrant, warm, ample and unforced". On 1 December ...
's ''
Maori Songs'' album, "
(Glad I'm) Not a Kennedy" by
Shona Laing
Shona Laing (born 9 October 1955) is a New Zealand musician. She was raised in Eastbourne, a suburb of Lower Hutt, and was a student at Hutt Valley High School when her musical talents first came to public notice. Laing had several folk hits ...
, and receiving two
New Zealand Music Awards
The Aotearoa Music Awards (previously called the New Zealand Music Awards), conferred annually by Recorded Music NZ, honour outstanding artistic and technical achievements in the recording industry. The awards are among the most significant that ...
: in 1981 as Producer of the Year for ''
Dave McArtney and the Pink Flamingos'', and in 1986 as Best Producer, for ''
Peking Man
Peking Man (''Homo erectus pekinensis'', originally "''Sinanthropus pekinensis''") is a subspecies of '' H. erectus'' which inhabited what is now northern China during the Middle Pleistocene. Its fossils have been found in a cave some southw ...
''.
On 18 September 2020 Yusuf/
Cat Stevens
Yusuf Islam (born Steven Demetre Georgiou; ), commonly known by his stage names Cat Stevens, Yusuf, and Yusuf / Cat Stevens, is a British singer-songwriter and musician. He has sold more than 100 million records and has more than two billion st ...
released ''
Tea for the Tillerman 2'', a reimagining and re-recording of his 1970 album ''
Tea for the Tillerman
''Tea for the Tillerman'' is the fourth studio album by singer-songwriter Cat Stevens, released in November 1970.
Overview
Stevens' fourth album released during the year 1970, ''Tea for the Tillerman'' includes many of his best-known songs such ...
''. Lynch played bass on the new recording,and discussed the background and details of how this happened with
Jesse Mulligan
Jesse Robert Turi Mulligan is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster and writer. From 2015 he has hosted ''Afternoons'' on RNZ National. He was a co-host for '' The Project'' on Three from 2017 to 2023. He is also the Dining out editor a ...
on
RNZ.
Bruce's son,
Andy Lynch, is also a well known guitarist. He has played with
Sting
Stimulator of interferon genes (STING), also known as transmembrane protein 173 (TMEM173) and MPYS/MITA/ERIS is a regulator protein that in humans is encoded by the STING1 gene.
STING plays an important role in innate immunity. STING induces typ ...
and was formerly the lead guitarist for the band,
Zed. He currently plays with the New Zealand band,
Atlas
An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of world map, maps of Earth or of a continent or region of Earth. Advances in astronomy have also resulted in atlases of the celestial sphere or of other planets.
Atlases have traditio ...
. He scored several
Power Rangers
''Power Rangers'' is an American media franchise created by Haim Saban, Shuki Levy and Shotaro Ishinomori built around a live-action superhero television series, based on the Japanese tokusatsu franchise ''Super Sentai''. It is currently ow ...
series after the show's production moved to
Auckland
Auckland ( ; ) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. It has an urban population of about It is located in the greater Auckland Region, the area governed by Auckland Council, which includes outlying rural areas and ...
.
Discography
With Cat Stevens
(All albums with
Cat Stevens
Yusuf Islam (born Steven Demetre Georgiou; ), commonly known by his stage names Cat Stevens, Yusuf, and Yusuf / Cat Stevens, is a British singer-songwriter and musician. He has sold more than 100 million records and has more than two billion st ...
were released by
Island
An island or isle is a piece of land, distinct from a continent, completely surrounded by water. There are continental islands, which were formed by being split from a continent by plate tectonics, and oceanic islands, which have never been ...
/
A&M unless otherwise noted
* ''
Buddha and the Chocolate Box
''Buddha and the Chocolate Box'' is the eighth studio album by Cat Stevens, released in February 1974. The single "Ready" charted on 30 November 1974 and reached number 20 in Canada.
Track listing
All tracks composed by Cat Stevens
;Side One
# ...
'' (1974)
* ''
Saturnight'' (Live in Tokyo) (1974) Released only in Japan)
* ''
Numbers
A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The most basic examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...
'' (1975)
* ''
Majikat'' – Earth Tour (1976)
Eagle
Eagle is the common name for the golden eagle, bald eagle, and other birds of prey in the family of the Accipitridae. Eagles belong to several groups of Genus, genera, some of which are closely related. True eagles comprise the genus ''Aquila ( ...
* ''
Izitso
''Izitso'' is the tenth studio album by the British singer-songwriter Cat Stevens, released in April 1977. After the lacklustre ''Numbers'', the album proved to be his comeback. The album updated the rhythmic folk rock and pop rock style of his e ...
'' (1977)
* ''
Back to Earth'' (1978)
* ''
Tea for the Tillerman 2'' (2020)
With others
* ''
The Kick Inside
''The Kick Inside'' is the debut studio album by English singer-songwriter Kate Bush. Released on 17 February 1978 by EMI Records, it includes her UK No. 1 hit, " Wuthering Heights". The album peaked at No. 3 on the UK Albums Chart and has been ...
'' (1978) – Kate Bush,
EMI
EMI Group Limited (formerly EMI Group plc until 2007; originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At t ...
* ''
Rhapsodies
Rhapsody may refer to:
Ancient Greece
* A work of epic poetry, or part of one, that is suitable for recitation at one time
** Rhapsode, a classical Greek professional performer of epic poetry
Computer software
* Rhapsody (online music service ...
'' (1979) – Rick Wakeman, A&M
* ''
Tennis
Tennis is a List of racket sports, racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles (tennis), singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles (tennis), doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket st ...
'' (1980) – Chris Rea,
Magnet Records
Magnet Records was a British record label, started in 1973 by Michael Levy and Peter Shelley. Adam Sweeting"Alvin Stardust obituary" ''The Guardian'', 23 October 2014 It was acquired by Warner Bros. Records in 1988 for an estimated £10m.
Ar ...
* ''
Across a Crowded Room'' (1985) – Richard Thompson,
Polydor
Polydor Limited, also known as Polydor Records, is a British record label that operates as part of Universal Music Group. It has a close relationship with Universal's Interscope Geffen A&M Records label, which distributes Polydor's releases in ...
* ''
Watching the Dark – The History of Richard Thompson'' (1993) – Richard Thompson
* ''
One Fine Day'' (2019) – Chris Rea
References
External links
*
*
*
1948 births
Living people
New Zealand musicians
New Zealand session musicians
New Zealand bass guitarists
New Zealand male bass guitarists
New Zealand record producers
New Zealand expatriates in England
Double-bassists
Male double-bassists
21st-century double-bassists
21st-century New Zealand male musicians
Morrissey–Mullen members
New Zealand guitarists
{{NewZealand-musician-stub