I just found out that a very dear friend of mine, the excellent bassist and musician Tom Ward, has passed from cancer.
I met Tom on my first trip to California in the late 1980s, and even though he was young, he was already fully formed Tom Ward. The dude was “rocking the decades,” as some have called it, refusing to be a part of the current era, devoting an incredible amount of time and passion into not only being an incredible bass player fluent in many forgotten styles of music, but also looking the part, dressing like a dapper mofo twenty-four hours a day. I never once saw the guy wearing “casual clothes” or looking sloppy. He was a talented, sharp-dressed man. He mostly dressed like a guy from the early to mid-1960s, straight out of central casting for That Thing You Do, and he never once broke character—because it wasn’t an act. That’s just who he was.
He was the first guy I ever met who understood the importance of the bassist’s role in playing vintage-style music. He innately knew things no one else did, in those days before the internet—things like flat-wound bass strings, felt picks, foam-rubber string mutes, various period-correct bass amplifier designs. We talked for HOURS about Rickenbacker pickups, the original amplified-peg “Ampeg” bass amps of the late 1940s, and the tone of obscure brands of basses and what types of genres they were good for.
Beyond that, the dude knew how these pieces of gear needed to be played. He was a great musician. I saw him many times in many different bands. He always played exactly what needed to be played. A 1962-era Merseybeat number? He could play bass lines like the Searchers’ Tony Jackson or Paul McCartney in the Hamburg era. A late-1950s American rock and roll band? He’d lay down grooves worthy of Jerry Lee Lewis or Chuck Berry or Wanda Jackson’s bassists at their finest. Country? He was great (I really miss the Elotes Trio, a great country-jazz group from a few years back that Tom played with). Soul/funk/R&B? He most recently played with a group called the Amandas, and Tom laid it down with the best of the 1960s soul bassists. One of my big regrets is that I never really got to play with the guy; we always lived in different cities. We talked about it, but it never happened beyond a few times I sat in with the Nashville Ramblers or the Saturn V.
Tom drove vintage hearses and could discuss literature and history and was funny as hell; I’ll remember his cheerful laugh and big, toothy smile more than anything else. And in a music scene where grievances and complaints and bitchin’ and moanin’ seemed to be the daily norm, I never once saw Tom engage with any of that. He’d just back off and play the bass. He was just a super positive guy.
He got cancer of the mouth a few years back and although it went into remission, it robbed him of his voice. I recently learned that the cancer had returned and that he had been put into hospice, but of course I wasn’t anticipating his passing to come so quickly. He was much, much too young.
My heart goes out to Ann Kopels and all of Tom’s family. This one feels personal; Tom really was like a brother from another mother. I mourn his memory, as well as the loss of one of the GREAT bass players (and we can’t afford to lose any more great bass players!). Rest in peace, my friend.
