Wilton Felder

Felder was born on August 31, 1940, in Houston, Texas and studied music at Texas Southern University. Felder, Wayne Henderson, Joe Sample, and Stix Hooper founded their group while in high school in Houston. The Jazz Crusaders evolved from a straight-ahead jazz group into a pioneering jazz-rock fusion band, with a definite soul music influence. Felder worked with the original group for over thirty years, and continued to work in its later versions, which often featured other founding members.

Felder also worked as a West Coast studio musician, mostly… playing electric bass, for various soul and R&B musicians, and was one of the in-house bass players for Motown Records, when the record label opened operations in Los Angeles in the early 1970s. He played on recordings by the Jackson 5 such as “I Want You Back”, “ABC” and “The Love You Save”, as well as recordings by Marvin Gaye including “Let's Get It On” and “I Want You”. He also played bass for soft rock groups like Seals and Crofts. Felder played bass on #1 big hit The Hues Corporation's “Rock the Boat” (1974), not James Jamerson. He played on records by many other musicians such as Four Tops Keeper of the Castle (1972), Steely Dan's Pretzel Logic (1974), Joni Mitchell's For the Roses, John Cale's Paris 1919, Billy Joel's Piano Man, Randy Newman's Sail Away (1972) and Joan Baez' Diamonds & Rust. Felder also contributed to albums from Grant Green and Michael Franks. He released the album “Inherit the Wind” with Bobby Womack in 1980.