Doug Wimbish was born on September 22, 1956, in Hartford, Connecticut. Wimbish started playing guitar at the age of 12 and switched to bass guitar at the age of 14. In 1979 he was hired together with guitarist Skip McDonald and drummer Keith LeBlanc to form the house rhythm section for Sugarhill Records. As part of that rhythm section, although they did not play on the Sugarhill Gang's famous song "Rapper's Delight," they did play on many other popular song tracks, including "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five and "Apache" by the Sugarhill Gang. This early work established Wimbish as one of the foundational architects of hip hop's musical backbone, long before the genre had its own dedicated session culture.
As the Sugarhill era wound down, Wimbish's career only expanded. Together with McDonald and LeBlanc, Wimbish headed to London in 1984 and started working with producer Adrian Sherwood and formed the group Tackhead. Tackhead fused dub, industrial, and hip hop into a singular sound, and through Sherwood's orbit Wimbish became an in-demand session player, contributing to records by artists ranging from the Rolling Stones to Mick Jagger. Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five's "The Message," listed by Rollingstone.com as the number one greatest hip hop song of all time, featured Doug's bass lines, as do many other Sugarhill Records classics including "Apache," "8th Wonder" and "White Lines." His stature in the industry grew to remarkable heights, and in one week in 1991, Doug received personal phone calls from Living Colour, Bruce Springsteen and Seal, all asking him to work with them, and he made the decision to work with Living Colour, joining the band as its permanent bassist. Wimbish's arrival cemented Living Colour's lineup, and he joined the band in 1992, replacing bassist Muzz Skillings. Beyond Living Colour, his career arc reads like a map of contemporary popular music. He sang on records by the Rolling Stones, and later played on the Stones' 1997 album Bridges to Babylon. He has played for a vast range of artists, among which Mick Jagger, Madonna, Tarja, George Clinton, Depeche Mode, and Mos Def. He also continued to build his own projects, including forming the drum and bass group Jungle Funk together with drummer Will Calhoun and percussionist/vocalist Vinx in 1999. That same year, Wimbish's solo album Trippy Notes for Bass was released. In 2000 Living Colour was reformed with Wimbish as the bass player, and the band toured in the United States and in Europe. Wimbish has remained a vital, active musical force well into recent years. He actively records and tours with his band mates Vernon Reid, Corey Glover and Will Calhoun, with Living Colour's most recent album, "Shade," released in September of 2017. His discography and side projects continue to grow, including recent collaborative work, and from his early days as one of hip hop's earliest architects in the Original Sugarhill Records Rhythm Section, to his long-time membership in Living Colour, Tackhead, Little Axe, Jungle Funk, and HeadFake, Doug continues to prove himself as one of the world's finest, versatile and most sought after bass guitarists. His legacy as a boundary-crossing innovator, equally at home in hip hop, funk, dub, and hard rock, has earned him recognition as one of the most respected and imitated bassists of his generation.
For the archive at waynedennon.com, Doug Wimbish holds a special, if modest, place among the thousands of musicians Wayne Dennon documented over the years. Wayne photographed the artist just once, at a 2009 show, leaving behind 13 photographs that capture a single night of Wimbish's decades-spanning career. Those images have since been viewed 10,405 times by visitors to the archive, a quiet testament to the enduring pull of a musician whose bass lines have echoed through hip hop, rock, and beyond for over four decades.
