BRYANT WILDER BIOGRAPHY - FUNKY VERSION:   BRYANT WILDER: The Early Years   Apartment 4A put me on The Right Track. I must have been five when I realized that my mother loved music. Soul Music. Funky Music. On most any given day, except Sunday, she blasted Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight (Early Years), Marvin Gaye, James Brown, The Temptations, The Manhattans, Eddie Kendricks, The O'Jays, Linda Jones, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, The Spinners, Barry White and Tom Jones (now isn't that "Unusual"). On Sundays Sam Cooke, Dorothy Love Coates and the Virginia Choral Ensemble (Cedar Street Baptist Church) further molded my musical taste. Let's just say I was being educated and didn't even know it. Thanks Mom!   Apartment 2A is where my instrumental roots are tied. That's where my cousin, Dwayne Perdue, lived. He was an accomplished drummer at an early age and his band "Positive Plus" rehearsed in that apartment almost four times per week for years. From mid-afternoon until dark I could hear and feel the funk saturate the walls of the old tenement in the Bronx. Puerto Rican Joe, my earliest bass influence, was in my view the funkiest cat alive. I wanted to be Joe. To hear him crank out "Soul Macusa" was a thing of beauty.     BRYANT WILDER: Then What? Luckily, Joe usually left his bass at the apartment. And, even better, he never put it in the case. And, you guessed it; I used to sneak in my aunt's living room, pick up Joe's bass and imitate him. Years later (here's where the confusion begins) Dwayne taught me how to thump the bass line from "Slide by Slave". Remember that..funkkkkyyyyy!!!! That was the first song I learned (and only song I played for weeks). Now, "I know the Lord is a one, six, two, four gospel ballad that my brother and brother-in-law will argue (to this day) that this was the first song I learned. Each will take credit for teaching it to me. They did teach it to me. But, sorry fellas it wasn't my first.   My brother-in-law taught me how to play devotional songs. Devotional songs are impromptu songs sang in a church service that can be sang at any tempo in any key (even between keys). That experience led me to playing for the church choir, community choirs, state choirs and HipHop acts (most recently Missy Elliot). I've played in hundreds of churches for thousands of gospel concerts and recordings.     Go back to Bryant Wilder: The Official Biography.