Introducing Clive 

Clive Hunte is a bassist, session musician, composer and photographer from Manchester. His musical career has been both eventful and varied, spanning multiple genres, including neo soul, jazz and afrobeat, as well as a variety of fusion-based musical styles from around the world. Clive has performed his music here in Manchester, on albums for artists such as Lily Allen and Mr Scruff, and on tour in a number of different countries.The common thread running throughout Clive's extensive performance background has been the rich musical network in Manchester that he has participated in since the 1980s. 

Clive's Musical Life Story 

Born and raised in Manchester to Barbadian parents, in his childhood Clive was a musical listener rather than a performer. The music that would influence his playing later in life came from his Uncle's record collection:"Really, I've only heard [Caribbean music] on the holidays. My mum listened to Country and Western- most Caribbean households played a lot of Country and Western, Jim Reeves was the big guy at the time. My musical influence at an early age was mainly from my uncle, when he used to come visit his sister, my mum; and he used to bring in all the records round, brought some obscure stuff that I'd never heard of, and then I realised later on that wow, he'd brought round the Weather Report, he'd brought round Miles Davis, you know what I mean? So I got into that kind of music from an early age, and during my school years I used to buy records all the time." At the age of eighteen, a visit to his half sister in America became a defining moment in Clive's career; witnessing the birth of hip hop in early '80s New York inspired Clive to take up the guitar himself. On returning to Manchester, he began learning guitar at All Saint's Education College (now part of Manchester Metropolitan University). "Yeah, I got into music really late, and that was only because I went to see my half sister in New York. And I was there at the start of hip hop! Yeah, it was brilliant. So that's why I kind of, came back and thought, "I want to do something but I can't play anything", so I nicked my sister's classical guitar, cause she was learning guitar at the time, she's never played. And that was where it all started from that." "So yeah, when I came back... I went to All Saints, which is now part of the University. When I first started off, doing classical guitar, at All Saints adult education college. And then I met people there, and they said, "Oh, no, come over and do some jazz". So I then went over and did the jazz, and that's where I met all my mates, including my mate Kevin- he used to run a jam session at PJ Bells, which is now Matt and Phred's." This circle of musicians at All Saints was an extensive but tight-knit network, which helped Clive develop his musicianship quickly within the Manchester music scene. This network acted as both a source of work and as a social circle for Clive and many other musicians in the city: "I took I took the short path, and that was going to All Saints Sure. And I met a lot of people in such a short space of time, and that helped me, helped me as a musician to accelerate my learning as a musician . And you know, and it was this great network of musicians. Everybody used to go down to PJ Bells on a Sunday, to the jam sessions. Quite a few bands are made from the from the jam sessions, you know what I mean? " "When I decided to learn how to play the guitar, you know I kind of ostracized my friends, because they weren't interested in music- so I created a whole new set of friends, just because of the way to live out playing an instrument ... It's just with all my friends, 99% of all of them are musicians. "The connections Clive forged within this network also gave him experience beyond his original musical styles, introducing him to a variety of genres including Afrobeat and leading to his participation in the formation of new bands in Manchester:"I met up with this drummer called Chris, my mate Chris Shaw. And then he was the one that introduced me to Afrobeat- a mate of his used to come over from Liverpool, and they used to jam together, and then I eventually became their bass player for River Niger orchestra. I was playing afrobeat for- what year was that now? - that's in the early 2000s, I think. And then because I'd played with River Niger, then the guy, he used to book all the bands at Band on the Wall- this was the old band on the wall before it reopened ... But anyway, so yeah, this booking manager called Guy Morley, saw me play and he decided to put his own afrobeat band together, because he was big into African music. The band was actually called Afrocentrics, so we did a lot of Fela [Kuti] covers, so that's where, that's where all my Fela came from,with Afrocentrics ... Afrocentrics was where I learned all the Fela basslines. " Clive also found success in Manchester leading his own musical outfits; he recalls an important performance by his own Manchester-based band on BBC radio: "I had my own band, actually, with some of the guys that I had met at All Saints College- I had a group called the Clive Hunte group... Yeah, we performed live on Radio 3, in the Royal Exchange Theatre. So as my own band, that was amazing for me." 

A Defining Moment in Clive's Career

Clive's 'big break' came when he began playing with Un-Cut, a drum and bass outfit in Manchester's underground scene; this opportunity led to him touring around the world and recording on significant albums with members from the band. This turning point came at a time when Clive's relationship with his musical career had become more strained, and the timing of this opportunity was highly significant:"Fast forward a couple years, it's funny, actually, I was gonna stop playing ... So I was about to give up. And then I got a phone call from Lee, this guy called Lee ... So he said to me , "are you still playing?" And I said, "well, I was thinking of giving it up," and he said, "Well, I'm co-producing an album, with these three musicians who've just been signed to Warner Brothers. Do you fancy coming to an audition? "And I thought," yeah, okay, nothing to lose .. "So I went to the audition, next day, I got a call saying they want me to play. So that was me for just over two years, touring all over Europe, and playing big venues. " This touring stint with Un-cut sky-rocketed Clive's career, playing across Europe and in significant venues like the Royal Albert Hall."I never thought, you know, I would be in that situation- I know my mate Kevin [Davy], he ended up playing with Lamb, and I was envious of him- I was happy for him, but you know, when they rack up on the tourbus I'd think, "Ah man, that's the life I want." I remember [other friends] saying, "[I'm] jealous of you," [laughs], and I said, "Don 't worry man, one day, one day! "Yeah, I never thought it would happen to me." This connection to the members of Un-cut landed Clive a recording on what would become a very prominent record- Lily Allen's first album, Alright, Still; even after a dramatic setback, Clive was able to record on the album:"And then when they got dropped, the two guys [in Un-Cut], they were given a project, which was Lily Allen, she was totally unknown at the time. They said to me, "do you fancy playing on the album?" so I said, "yeah", and they said, "we'll call you, we'll give you a call when we're ready to get you in". The day of the session, I ended up getting hit by a bus [laughs]. The only part of my body [affected] was my hand... Bless those two guys, they could have got anyone else, but they waited for me to get better, and I ended up going in the studio. And I ended up playing four tracks on the album." 

Exploring World Musical Styles

Clive's musical network has led to performance opportunities across many different musical styles. He has worked with Nitin Sawhney, a prominent name in the Asian underground and electronic scene, on several occasions, through arts organizations in Manchester and the Contact Theater: "When Contact Theater reopened in 1999, they had a project called Session 72, which Nitin was the facilitator and leader of ... We had a workshop at the theater, and we had 72 hours to put it into a concert. And then the second time that I met up with [Nitin] was with- if you've heard of Brighter Sound .. They do a lot of music workshops, they used to be called GMMAZ- Greater Manchester Music Action Zone. They did a project called Aftershock, and they got Nitin to lead that, so it was the second time I'd met up with him. With that session, all the participants were asked to put a song into the hat, and then we'd deconstruct it and put it back together. And that was basically, everybody contributed a song, which was cool. "The experience and connections gained from working with Nitin led to future musical projects that combine musical cultures and styles, such as his band Electronic Empires with Jaydev Mistry and Glenn Sharp, formed as part of the South Asian cultural festival The New North and South. "I was in a band with Jaydev- it was commissioned by Band on the Wall to be part of a South Asian music festival dotted around Manchester, and the headliner of the festival was Nitin Sawhney ... We were commissioned to write new material for this festival. So Band on the Wall asked me, Jaydev and this guitarist called Glenn [Sharp], because the three of us were involved in the project with Contact .. We did a concert at Band on the Wall- it was about two years ago. And we were called Electronic Empires- the name is loosely based on colonialism you know, Empire, British Empire, me being Caribbean, Jaydev is Indian and Glenn is an Englishman, so that's where that name came from [laughs]. So that was a fusion of Indian Classical, electronic, jazz, and were then asked to invite other musicians- so the main nucleus was me, Jadev and Glenn, but we brought in musicians- a tabla player, a friend of mine from Berlin, I randomly ended up playing on their album after that session. We had a String Quartet- it was brilliant. "Clive has also played in Brazilian and carnival-orientated musical traditions in Manchester, such as with Tony Watt's Manchester School of Samba, and with Leon Patel's carnival-facilitating organization Global Grooves; the latter of which led to Clive touring Brazil. Clive credits his experiences of playing in differing musical traditions with providing a steep but strengthening learning curve to his musicianship: "I played with a bhangra band as well ... They used to play all the weddings and stuff like that. huge learning curve, because they're the structural format of the songs is totally different than Western music, it took me ages to kind of, grasp what was going on, I was actually going to leave, because I just couldn't, it just wouldn't click. And then they said, "Don't follow the musicians, listen to what the vocalist is doing; when the vocalist changes, you'll hear it. " s carnival-facilitating organization Global Grooves; the latter of which led to Clive touring Brazil. Clive credits his experiences of playing in differing musical traditions with providing a steep but strengthening learning curve to his musicianship: "I played with a bhangra band as well ... They used to play all the weddings and stuff like that. huge learning curve, because they're the structural format of the songs is totally different than Western music, it took me ages to kind of, grasp what was going on, I was actually going to leave, because I just couldn't, it just wouldn't click. And then they said, "Don't follow the musicians, listen to what the vocalist is doing; when the vocalist changes, you'll hear it. " s carnival-facilitating organization Global Grooves; the latter of which led to Clive touring Brazil. Clive credits his experiences of playing in differing musical traditions with providing a steep but strengthening learning curve to his musicianship: "I played with a bhangra band as well ... They used to play all the weddings and stuff like that. huge learning curve, because they're the structural format of the songs is totally different than Western music, it took me ages to kind of, grasp what was going on, I was actually going to leave, because I just couldn't, it just wouldn't click. And then they said, "Don't follow the musicians, listen to what the vocalist is doing; when the vocalist changes, you'll hear it. " Clive credits his experiences of playing in differing musical traditions with providing a steep but strengthening learning curve to his musicianship: "I played with a bhangra band as well ... They used to play all the weddings and stuff like that. huge learning curve, because they're the structural format of the songs is totally different than Western music, it took me ages to kind of, grasp what was going on, I was actually going to leave, because I just couldn't, it just wouldn't click. And then they said, "Don't follow the musicians, listen to what the vocalist is doing; when the vocalist changes, you'll hear it. " Clive credits his experiences of playing in differing musical traditions with providing a steep but strengthening learning curve to his musicianship: "I played with a bhangra band as well ... They used to play all the weddings and stuff like that. huge learning curve, because they're the structural format of the songs is totally different than Western music, it took me ages to kind of, grasp what was going on, I was actually going to leave, because I just couldn't, it just wouldn't click. And then they said, "Don't follow the musicians, listen to what the vocalist is doing; when the vocalist changes, you'll hear it. " They used to play all the weddings and stuff like that. That again was a huge learning curve, because they're the structural format of the songs is totally different than Western music, it took me ages to kind of, grasp what was going on, I was actually going to leave, because I just couldn 't, it just wouldn't click. And then they said, "Don't follow the musicians, listen to what the vocalist is doing; when the vocalist changes, you'll hear it." They used to play all the weddings and stuff like that. That again was a huge learning curve, because they're the structural format of the songs is totally different than Western music, it took me ages to kind of, grasp what was going on, I was actually going to leave, because I just couldn 't, it just wouldn't click. And then they said, "Don't follow the musicians, listen to what the vocalist is doing; when the vocalist changes, you'll hear it." t follow the musicians, listen to what the vocalist is doing; when the vocalist changes, you'll hear it. " t follow the musicians, listen to what the vocalist is doing; when the vocalist changes, you'll hear it. " 

Clive's Future Projects 

Clive has recently been co-producing an album with Manchester-based spoken word artist Shirley May, with whom he used to be part of a house band collective called speakeasy (now renamed Young Identity). He is also hoping in the coming year to develop his own album, in a variety of musical styles, dependent on funding: "It's going to embrace all the stuff I've been involved in, you know what I mean? ..My album will have African, Brazilian, Indian, spoken word influences, as well as you know, the neo-soul, jazz sort of thing as well." 

Spandex Man Live at Band on the Wall (see video) 

The music Clive has shared with this project comes from his somewhat unexpected guest appearance on bass at a gig at Band on the Wall, a prominent live music venue in the Northern Quarter of the City Centre: " I was working at Band on the Wall at the time doing their filming, it was this band called Introducing- now they they would take an iconic album and recreate it live, and then they did Mr. Scruff's first album. Right so I then went up to them when they were sound-checking downstairs, I said, "I played on this album, you know,"... And they said, "What, you're the bass player on that?!" And I said, "Yeah, I did all the weird noises as well!" So that night, they got me on stage!"