Stevie Wonder’s Longtime Sideman

Posted on September 11th, 2009 at 9:53 pm by

2


Nate Watts and Stevie Wonder

If you’re looking for a history of R&B from the 1970s onward, you don’t have to look much further than the discography for Nathan Watts. The Detroit-born bass player has lent his magic touch to everyone from Michael Jackson and his famous brothers to the Pointer Sisters, Diana Ross, Gladys Night and the Pips, the Spinners, the Temptations, and countless others.

But it’s as Stevie Wonder’s longtime sideman that Watts has earned the lion’s share of his well-deserved acclaim. Now in his fourth decade as the powerful rhythmic foundation of Wonder’s singular sound and in his 12th year as Wonder’s music director, Watts has come a long way from the rough and tumble Detroit neighborhood where he was born in 1954.