Paul Buckmaster

Paul Buckmaster is an artist, arranger, and composer. He is perhaps best known for his collaborations with Elton John, but he has also worked as an arranger on various hit songs, including David Bowie's "Space Oddity" (1969), and played with Miles Davis, on "On the Corner".

Career

Born in London, England, Paul was taught the cello from age 4. At age eleven, he won a cello scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music in London. Buckmaster played and composed in a number of jazz and progressive music groups including the Third Ear Band, Nucleus and Suntreader. He was the principal soloist on the third movement of Neil Ardley's 1976 recording, Kaleidoscope of Rainbows.

Buckmaster met Miles Davis in 1969 and began to study with him in New York City in 1972. He appears on Davis' album "On the Corner" (1972), for which he wrote arrangements and played electric cello. He began working with Elton John in 1970, helping arrange his second album, "Elton John", and initiating a collaborative effort that exists to the present day.

Buckmaster is credited with the idea of the gospel choir that backed The Rolling Stones on "You Can't Always Get What You Want". [ [http://music.yahoo.com/read/review/14217297 Yahoo review] ] In addition to the aforementioned artists, Buckmaster has arranged music on albums by The Rolling Stones, the Grateful Dead, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Mott the Hoople, Harry Nilsson, Carly Simon, Shawn Phillips, Belinda Carlisle, Debbie Gibson, Stevie Nicks, Nick Heyward, Faith Hill, Carole Bayer Sager, Backstreet Boys, The Darkness, Keith Urban, Angelo Branduardi and Celine Dion. He also scored the soundtrack for the film "Twelve Monkeys".

More recently, Buckmaster won a Grammy Award as Best Arranger for the sweeping string arrangement of Train's 2001 song "Drops of Jupiter". He was brought back for the band's following album, "My Private Nation".

In 2004, it was revealed that he had worked on arrangements for the songs "Madagascar", "The Blues", "There Was a Time", and "Prostitute" as part of the sessions for the as-yet unreleased Guns N' Roses album "Chinese Democracy".

In 2005, Buckmaster arranged and conducted an orchestral accompaniment for the song "Landed", from the Ben Folds album "Songs for Silverman". While the song went on to be a hit single, the string arrangement, at the request of Folds, was left out of the single and album cuts and is now available on the DualDisc version of the album. In 2006 Buckmaster worked again for two Ben Folds tracks "Learn to Live With What You Are" and "Still". These songs were already released without strings on EPs, and Buckmaster was asked by Folds to upgrade the tracks for Folds' album release "Supersunnyspeedgraphic".

elected discography

*Blood, Sweat and Tears
**"No Sweat"

*David Bowie
**"Space Oddity"

*Leonard Cohen
**"Songs of Love and Hate"

*Elton John
**"Elton John"
**"Tumbleweed Connection"
**"Friends" (movie soundtrack)
**"Madman Across the Water"
**"Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player"
**"Blue Moves"
**"Made in England"
**"Songs from the West Coast"

*Harry Nilsson
**"Nilsson Schmilsson"
**"Son of Schmilsson"

*Shawn Phillips
**"Contribution"
**"Collaboration"
**"Second Contribution"
**"Faces"

*Rolling Stones
**"Sticky Fingers" ("Sway" and "Moonlight Mile")

*Carly Simon
**"No Secrets" (three tracks)
**"Hotcakes"

Notes

References

* [http://www.etsmtl.ca/pers/jboisono/shawnphillips/friends/paul.htm Paul Buckmaster web page]