Ernie Fields Jr. is a
baritone saxophonist and
session musician
Session musicians, studio musicians, or backing musicians are musicians hired to perform in recording sessions or live performances. The term sideman is also used in the case of live performances, such as accompanying a recording artist on a ...
.
Son of notable musician
Ernie Fields
Ernest Lawrence Fields (August 28, 1904 – May 11, 1997)Laprarie, Michael Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture'' (accessed May 14, 2010). was an American trombonist, pianist, arranger and bandleader. He first became known for leadin ...
,
he has worked with blues, soul and
funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in African American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African Americans in the m ...
artists including
B. B. King,
Bobby Bland
Robert Calvin Bland (born Robert Calvin Brooks; January 27, 1930 – June 23, 2013), known professionally as Bobby "Blue" Bland, was an American blues singer.
Bland developed a sound that mixed gospel with the blues and R&B. He was descr ...
,
Stevie Wonder
Stevland Hardaway Morris ( Judkins; May 13, 1950), known professionally as Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, who is credited as a pioneer and influence by musicians across a range of genres that include rhythm and blues, Pop musi ...
,
Aretha Franklin
Aretha Louise Franklin ( ; March 25, 1942 – August 16, 2018) was an American singer, songwriter and pianist. Referred to as the " Queen of Soul", she has twice been placed ninth in ''Rolling Stone''s "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". With ...
,
Rick James
James Ambrose Johnson Jr. (February 1, 1948 – August 6, 2004), better known by his stage name Rick James, was an American singer-songwriter, musician and record producer. Born and raised in Buffalo, New York, James began his musical career in ...
, and
Marvin Gaye
Marvin Pentz Gay Jr., who also spelled his surname as Gaye (April 2, 1939 – April 1, 1984), was an American singer and songwriter. He helped to shape the sound of Motown in the 1960s, first as an in-house session player and later as a solo ar ...
.
He graduated from
Booker T. Washington High School in 1951 and then attended
Howard University
Howard University (Howard) is a private, federally chartered historically black research university in Washington, D.C. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity" and accredited by the Middle States Commissi ...
, playing with his father's band during breaks. In the 1990s he began touring with trombonist
Fred Wesley
Fred Wesley (born July 4, 1943) is an American trombonist who worked with James Brown in the 1960s and 1970s and Parliament-Funkadelic in the second half of the 1970s.
Biography
Wesley was born the son of a high school teacher and big band lead ...
, playing
bagpipes
Bagpipes are a woodwind instrument using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. The Great Highland bagpipes are well known, but people have played bagpipes for centuries throughout large parts of Europe, No ...
as well as saxophone.
[
He wrote the score for the 1978 film '']Disco Godfather
''Disco Godfather'' (also known as ''The Avenging Disco Godfather'') is a 1979 American action film starring Rudy Ray Moore and Carol Speed, directed by J. Robert Wagoner and released by Transvue Pictures. J. Robert Wagoner wrote and directed ''Di ...
''.
On April 6, 2010 episode of ''American Idol
''American Idol'' is an American singing competition television series created by Simon Fuller, produced by Fremantle North America and 19 Entertainment, and distributed by Fremantle North America. It aired on Fox from June 11, 2002, to Ap ...
'', Fields played the didgeridoo
The didgeridoo (; also spelt didjeridu, among other variants) is a wind instrument, played with vibrating lips to produce a continuous drone while using a special breathing technique called circular breathing. The didgeridoo was developed by ...
during Crystal Bowersox
Crystal Lynn Bowersox (born August 4, 1985) is an American singer, songwriter and actress who was the runner-up on the ninth season of ''American Idol''. She was the first female finalist in three years.
Bowersox's debut album, ''Farmer's Daug ...
's performance of the Lennon
John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 19408 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who achieved worldwide fame as founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of ...
and McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. One ...
composition "Come Together
"Come Together" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. The song is the opening track on their 1969 album ''Abbey Road'' and was also released as a single coupled with "Somethin ...
".
Ernie Fields Jr. is music contractor for ''American Idol'', ''The Voice'', and ''X Factor.''
Discography
* 1978: ''Here, My Dear
''Here, My Dear'' is the fifteenth studio album by music artist Marvin Gaye, released as a double album on December 15, 1978, on Motown-subsidiary label Tamla Records. allmusic - Here, My Dear overview/ref> Recording sessions for the album took ...
'' – Marvin Gaye
Marvin Pentz Gay Jr., who also spelled his surname as Gaye (April 2, 1939 – April 1, 1984), was an American singer and songwriter. He helped to shape the sound of Motown in the 1960s, first as an in-house session player and later as a solo ar ...
* 1978: '' Ride a Wild Horse - Motown Special Disco Version Single'' – Ernie Fields Jr.
* 1979: '' Wild and Peaceful'' – Teena Marie
Mary Christine Brockert (March 5, 1956 – December 26, 2010), known professionally as Teena Marie, was an American singer-songwriter, musician, composer, arranger, and producer. She was known by her childhood nickname Tina before taking the sta ...
* 1995: ''Conversation Peace
''Conversation Peace'' is the 22nd album released by American musician Stevie Wonder, on the Motown label in 1995. The album was Wonder's first full-length non-soundtrack studio album since 1987's ''Characters''. This album yielded the hits "Fo ...
'' – Stevie Wonder
Stevland Hardaway Morris ( Judkins; May 13, 1950), known professionally as Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, who is credited as a pioneer and influence by musicians across a range of genres that include rhythm and blues, Pop musi ...
* 2008: ''One Kind Favor
''One Kind Favor'' is B.B. King's 42nd and final studio album. Produced by T Bone Burnett, it was released on August 26, 2008 by Geffen Records.
The album won the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album at the 51st Grammy Awards.
Reception ...
'' – B. B. King
Selected filmography
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fields, Ernie Jr.
American jazz baritone saxophonists
Living people
21st-century American saxophonists
Year of birth missing (living people)