Nathan Watts

Biography

Nathan Lamar Watts (born March 25, 1954, in Detroit, Michigan.) is an American session bassist, best known for his work with Stevie Wonder from the 1970s to the present. He has served as Stevie Wonder's musical director since 1994. Born in Detroit, Nathan Watts started playing the trumpet while he was still in elementary school, inspired by Lee Morgan. Watts was part of a trio that featured other future prominent session musicians Ray Parker Jr. on clarinet and drummer Ollie Brown and frequented Motown's Hitsville Studios to attend rehearsals and recordings of The Funk Brothers, the base-band of the label. When Parker abandoned the clarinet in favor of the guitar, he convinced Watts to switch to bass, which was the first thing that he did after graduating from high school in 1972. With his first instrument, a National Bass, Watts learned "Cold Sweat" by James Brown, and soon began to study the lines of other great bassists such as James Jamerson, Chuck Rainey, and Bob Babbitt. When Ray Parker Jr. joined Marvin Gaye's band, Watts joined a local group called the Final Decision, with the intention of studying accounting, if his career as a musician failed. In August 1974, Watts received a call to work with Stevie Wonder, in replacement of Reggie McBride, who had joined Rare Earth. At the time, Watts had only been playing bass for two years. After being selected as the official bassist of the band, Watts took part in the Japanese tour of 1975, and then began recording the album Songs in the Key of Life. Watts says throughout his career with Wonder that he recorded bass tracks on many demos that Wonder replaced with his own keyboard bass for the final versions. This method was employed for “Knocks Me Off My Feet″ and ″Isn't She Lovely″. From that moment on, Nathan Watts's career has continued to develop, both alongside Stevie Wonder and with many other artists.