How did that musical bond get so big?
It was a culmination of things. My dad used to play at this place Jack’s of Sutter, where they had morning jam sessions so all the musicians from the road, and we’re going back to the early 60s, so Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Sonny Rollins, Stanley Turrentine. I was always around musicians. He would always take me along because sometimes he had to babysit us. And then when he started playing with Jerry Garcia at The Matrix, we would come there on Sundays and lie on the pillows and that was when my dad and mom had split up, so we had to spend part of the time with my dad and part of the time with my mom. But whenever, we would be with my dad, we would go with him to these music gigs and then it carried over when he would take me to studios. I would always ask to do stuff in the studio and wanted to learn about it. So when they were doing music and fooling around, doing what men do, I would be in the studio trying to figure out how to work the eight-track machine.
When we lived on Haight & Ashbury, there was a studio right across the street, so I would go there every day with my dad and hang out there and start to learn about engineering. And as a kid I played piano and when I would be around Herbie Hancock or someone like that, my mom tells me now that I always wanted to do something beyond the lessons of piano and I was always making up my own songs and stuff. I remember when I went to conservatory, they had to make me play piano for an hour in the book and once I did my hour in the book, I could play whatever I wanted to.
Me and my brother had a radio show with Sly Stone—he was a disc jockey before he made it. I knew Sly Stone when I was 10 years old and he gave me an organ. We used to walk his dog Stoner for money. I don’t know anything else but being around musicians. I was into music and sports and my dad loved the 49ers and we never missed a game. And one of my dad’s friends was on the Cleveland Browns, Walter Beach. They were in the Air Force together in Germany. The Browns always played the 49ers during the preseason and then the players would spend the night at our house, so we met Jim Brown. My sister, Susan, played the piano for a while and my brother played the guitar for six months but they just weren’t into it. I was into it and even at a young age. My brother, Merl Jr., was a roadie for Michael Jackson and Robert Cray and later in my dad’s life my sister toward the end of his life, ran his office, so we all spent a little time around it, but I worked with him the most. I worked with him for 40 years.
You were the only sibling that played music for a living. Did you feel extra pressure, because you were Merl Saunders’ son trying to make it in the music industry?
I think that it didn’t hit me till later. I didn’t realize where I was and I think that helped me. First I was a roadie when I was 12 years old when my dad went to play with Paul Butterfield. Me and my little brother would move equipment. I had moved organs most of my childhood. When Jimmy Smith and Richard Grooves Holmes would come to town, we would move their organs. There were these clubs that my dad would play at when we were young kids, so that’s how we would make our money. And that was before the dolly, where they tie on the organ and you lift it up with the little end thing. This was like moving organs, physically moving then but I did it because this was my dad and it was a way I could make $5.
So we were roadies and we went down to a gig with him at Selland Arena down in Fresno and I had never seen any other type of musicians. We set up my dad’s equipment and we were going to go back to the hotel to rest because then that night we had to drive from Fresno to San Diego. The Sons of Champlin came out — these white guys with long hair, and I was like, “Let’s hurry up and go back to the hotel.” And then they started playing and I was like, “Oh my God! This is incredible!” I fell in love with the Sons of Champlin that day. I never thought about the pressure because I was always around musicians and when it got to me, it was later in life when I wanted to make sure that I was good enough. I always wanted to please my dad and he would always tell me whether I was good or bad. When I started getting good, he was definitely my biggest supporter.
My dad put me up on a pedestal where I could shine, even though I had limited skills. But he knew what those limits were and he still have me a place to shine. And then when I could play better and stay up to the plate, he could still gave me that pedestal to shine. He was like a dad in that instance because he never made me look bad. He always made me look good. I listen to solos that I played when I was 17 and 18 and they’re not comparable to what I play now at the age of 59. He made me shine even when I sucked – that was kind of cool for a dad to do.
In addition to your dad’s musicianship, you also received music lessons from several legendary bassists.
I’ve been really blessed. He had the best people around me, not many people can say that they had bass lessons from Jack Casady, Chuck Rainey, John Kahn and James Jamerson. Not many people can say that they had all those great people around them, but it really made me study the bass more and it made be a better as a player because I was representing him, my dad. I still play piano, I play good enough to play on some of the recordings I do. I could play stuff in the studio but I can’t solo. But I can really solo on my bass and that’s the gift that I’ve made through him.
What was it like having those guys teach you how to play bass when you’re a teenager?
I was like 13, 14 when I started the bass and it was incredible because at first I didn’t know the magnitude of the people around me because all I really knew was music. I didn’t really know that they were really super famous, but they all helped me. John Kahn actually started with me and he made me play these basic things and he taught me to listen to James Jamerson because that’s who he liked to listen to. I went to so many Merl and Jerry shows when I was a teenager, I could mimic everything John Kahn did. I could still do it.
Then when we went to New York, my dad introduced me to Chuck Rainey and I would spend days with Chuck Rainey going around to sessions with him. It was an incredible experience because he was like “the cat” at the time. He would show me everything how to do. He was a typical New York guy, he was like, “Tony, when you play this bend over, don’t really show people how to do this.” I saw him play some great sessions with Ralph MacDonald and that whole little clique there, and he’s still one of my best friends today. And on my first album on San Francisco records, he wrote on the liner notes that he knew me since the beginning of my journey and he was glad to see the progress that I made and that I was a great player.
Jack Casady gave me a ton of equipment and he made me express myself more because he never played the same thing for too long. And he made me express myself and that’s what I learned from being around him, plus he was so giving. He missed seeing me play for 12 or 13 years and then he saw me play at this event that we both played at the Fillmore and he cried on my shoulder. He was really proud that he was part of my learning process and he gave me one of his signature basses. All of these people have been so awesome to me basically because my dad got me into this stuff and I never knew anything else I would do except music.
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