Caleb Quaye
Encyclopedia
Caleb Quaye is an English
Afro-European rock
guitarist
and studio musician
best known for his work in the 1960s and 1970s with Elton John
, Mick Jagger
, Pete Townshend
, Paul McCartney
and Hall & Oates
. He is the son of Cab Kaye
, the younger brother of Terri Quaye
, and the older brother of Finley Quaye
.
Quaye spent several years as a member of Long John Baldry
's backing band, Bluesology
, which also featured a keyboard player named Reg Dwight, who would soon become known as Elton John
. When Bluesology disbanded in 1967, Quaye released a single under the name Caleb called "Baby Your Phrasing is Bad" b/w "Woman of Distinction" (1967, Philips Records
). Both sides can be found on the Rubble series
, with "Woman of Distinction" of Volume One, and "Baby Your Phrasing is Bad" on Volume Four. "Baby Your Phrasing Is Bad" can also be found on Nuggets II, Chocolate Soup, and many other obscure psychedelic compilations.
Starting in 1969, Quaye played guitar
supporting Elton John at live concerts around the local London area, first with Boots Slade (bass
) and Malcolm Tomlinson
(drums
), and then later on with what eventually became the nucleus of Hookfoot
for sporadic shows. The live support work continued until Elton formed his original touring band in the spring of 1970, the trio featuring Dee Murray
and Nigel Olsson
.
In April 1970, Quaye formed the band Hookfoot
with Ian Duck, Roger Pope and David Glover, all of whom were DJM Records
house musicians and had backed Elton's earliest live performances. The group's self-titled debut album was a mix of rock
and jazz
and included songs by Quaye and Duck, in addition to Stephen Stills
and Neil Young
covers. Quaye played guitar and keyboards
on this album. The group's follow up record Good Times a-Comin' was a more straight-ahead rock album. A third album was Communication and the last album titled Roarin' . A live album called Hookfoot Live In Memphis, recorded in 1973 was released later. The group disbanded in 1974 and Quaye stayed in the United States
to work as a session musician.
Quaye played guitar, bass and percussion on "Forever's No Time At All", which opened I Am
, an album by Pete Townshend
and friends that was released in 1972 and dedicated to Meher Baba
. Later that year, the song appeared on Townshend's solo debut Who Came First
.
and Blue Moves
albums, as well as subsequent 1975/76 Elton tours.
joined Hall & Oates
. This group recorded Livetime
as well as the September 1978 release Along the Red Ledge
. Caleb also played on Daryl Hall
's first solo album which also featured Passarelli, Pope, and Robert Fripp
(King Crimson
).
faith becoming a musician/evangelist
. From 1986 to 1995, Quaye was an Associate Pastor, Chief Musician and Staff Evangelist at the Foursquare Church
in Pasadena
, California
. Since 1996, Quaye has served as the National Worship Director for the Foursquare denomination, ministering throughout the United States, England and Europe
.
Today Quaye also serves as adjunct faculty at LIFE Pacific College in San Dimas, California
, teaching music and worship leadership. He is also one of the elders in the church that meets in the chapel on campus.
In February 2006, Vision Publishing released Quaye's autobiography, A Voice Louder Than Rock & Roll, in paperback. The book is credited to "Caleb Quaye with Dale A. Berryhill."
From 2008 on, Quaye released two jazz-rock fusion CDs. The first one was One Night in San Dimas, with Out of the Blue as the 2010 follow-up album; both of which he plays his signature model Brazen guitar, loaded with Seymour Duncan pickups.
He now Serves at the Lompoc Foursquare in Lompoc CA
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
Afro-European rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
guitarist
Guitarist
A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...
and studio musician
Session musician
Session musicians are instrumental and vocal performers, musicians, who are available to work with others at live performances or recording sessions. Usually such musicians are not permanent members of a musical ensemble and often do not achieve fame in their own right as soloists or bandleaders...
best known for his work in the 1960s and 1970s with Elton John
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE, Hon DMus is an English rock singer-songwriter, composer, pianist and occasional actor...
, Mick Jagger
Mick Jagger
Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is an English musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and a founding member of The Rolling Stones....
, Pete Townshend
Pete Townshend
Peter Dennis Blandford "Pete" Townshend is an English rock guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and author, known principally as the guitarist and songwriter for the rock group The Who, as well as for his own solo career...
, Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
and Hall & Oates
Hall & Oates
Hall & Oates are an American musical duo composed of Daryl Hall and John Oates. They achieved their greatest fame in the late 1970s and early to mid-1980s. Both sing and play instruments. They specialized in a fusion of rock and roll and rhythm and blues styles, which they dubbed "rock and soul."...
. He is the son of Cab Kaye
Cab Kaye
Nii-lante Augustus Kwamlah Quaye, better known as Cab Kaye was an English-Ghanaian-Dutch jazz musician, bandleader, entertainer, drummer, guitarist, pianist, songwriter and singer. His singing was influenced by Billie Holiday and he often accompanied himself on piano with a graceful, rhythmic style...
, the younger brother of Terri Quaye
Terri Quaye
Theresa "Terri" Quaye, also Theresa Naa-Koshie is an English singer, pianist, and percussionist. She is the daughter of Cab Kaye and the older sister of Caleb Quaye and Finley Quaye....
, and the older brother of Finley Quaye
Finley Quaye
Finley Quaye is a British musician. He won the 1997 Mobo Award for best reggae act, and the 1998 BRIT Award for Best British Male Solo Artist.-Life:...
.
Early career
Quaye was a member of local band The Sound Castles while at school.Quaye spent several years as a member of Long John Baldry
Long John Baldry
John William "Long John" Baldry was an English and Canadian blues singer and a voice actor. He sang with many British musicians, with Rod Stewart and Elton John appearing in bands led by Baldry in the 1960s. He enjoyed pop success in the UK where Let the Heartaches Begin reached No...
's backing band, Bluesology
Bluesology
Bluesology was a 1960s English R&B group, best remembered as being the first professional band of which Reggie Dwight - later known as Elton John - was a member.-History:...
, which also featured a keyboard player named Reg Dwight, who would soon become known as Elton John
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE, Hon DMus is an English rock singer-songwriter, composer, pianist and occasional actor...
. When Bluesology disbanded in 1967, Quaye released a single under the name Caleb called "Baby Your Phrasing is Bad" b/w "Woman of Distinction" (1967, Philips Records
Philips Records
Philips Records is a record label that was founded by Dutch electronics company Philips. It was started by "Philips Phonographische Industrie" in 1950. Recordings were made with popular artists of various nationalities and also with classical artists from Germany, France and Holland. Philips also...
). Both sides can be found on the Rubble series
Rubble series
Rubble is a 20-volume collection of compilation albums of mostly late-1960s British psychedelic rock compiled by Bam-Caruso Records, St Albans, Herts, England by Phil Lloyd-Smee....
, with "Woman of Distinction" of Volume One, and "Baby Your Phrasing is Bad" on Volume Four. "Baby Your Phrasing Is Bad" can also be found on Nuggets II, Chocolate Soup, and many other obscure psychedelic compilations.
Starting in 1969, Quaye played guitar
Electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
supporting Elton John at live concerts around the local London area, first with Boots Slade (bass
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
) and Malcolm Tomlinson
Malcolm Tomlinson
Malcolm Tomlinson is most notable as a Canadian musician, particularly active as a recording artist in the late 1970s.-UK Years: Early 1960s-1969:...
(drums
Drum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
), and then later on with what eventually became the nucleus of Hookfoot
Hookfoot
Hookfoot was a British rock band, active from 1970 to 1974.Formed by Caleb Quaye and three fellow DJM session musicians, Ian Duck , Roger Pope and David Glover , the band were also backing musicians for Elton John, appearing together on most of his early recordings for DJM...
for sporadic shows. The live support work continued until Elton formed his original touring band in the spring of 1970, the trio featuring Dee Murray
Dee Murray
Dee Murray was an English bassist, best known as a member of Elton John's original rock band.-Biography:Murray was born David Murray Oates in Southgate, London in 1946...
and Nigel Olsson
Nigel Olsson
Nigel Olsson is an English rock drummer, who is best known for his work with Elton John. Olsson helped establish the Elton John sound as one of the first members of John's band, on drums, percussion and backing vocals. When not working with Elton, Olsson has taken up the role of a session musician...
.
In April 1970, Quaye formed the band Hookfoot
Hookfoot
Hookfoot was a British rock band, active from 1970 to 1974.Formed by Caleb Quaye and three fellow DJM session musicians, Ian Duck , Roger Pope and David Glover , the band were also backing musicians for Elton John, appearing together on most of his early recordings for DJM...
with Ian Duck, Roger Pope and David Glover, all of whom were DJM Records
DJM Records
DJM Records was the record label set up in the 1970s by British music publisher, Dick James, distributed by Pye Records in the UK and various other companies around the world, including the USA...
house musicians and had backed Elton's earliest live performances. The group's self-titled debut album was a mix of rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
and jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and included songs by Quaye and Duck, in addition to Stephen Stills
Stephen Stills
Stephen Arthur Stills is an American guitarist and singer/songwriter best known for his work with Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills & Nash . He has performed on a professional level in several other bands as well as maintaining a solo career at the same time...
and Neil Young
Neil Young
Neil Percival Young, OC, OM is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of his generation...
covers. Quaye played guitar and keyboards
Keyboard instrument
A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
on this album. The group's follow up record Good Times a-Comin' was a more straight-ahead rock album. A third album was Communication and the last album titled Roarin' . A live album called Hookfoot Live In Memphis, recorded in 1973 was released later. The group disbanded in 1974 and Quaye stayed in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
to work as a session musician.
Quaye played guitar, bass and percussion on "Forever's No Time At All", which opened I Am
I am (Pete Townshend album)
I Am is a collaboration concept album by Pete Townshend and friends pressed in 1972. The album includes the original version of "Baba O'Riley" played by Townshend alone without lyrics, which, at 9:48, is almost twice as long as the augmented version which opens Who's Next. I Am was produced as a...
, an album by Pete Townshend
Pete Townshend
Peter Dennis Blandford "Pete" Townshend is an English rock guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and author, known principally as the guitarist and songwriter for the rock group The Who, as well as for his own solo career...
and friends that was released in 1972 and dedicated to Meher Baba
Meher Baba
Meher Baba , , born Merwan Sheriar Irani, was an Indian mystic and spiritual master who declared publicly in 1954 that he was the Avatar of the age....
. Later that year, the song appeared on Townshend's solo debut Who Came First
Who Came First
Who Came First is the first major-label solo album by Pete Townshend, released in 1972 on Track Records in the UK and Track/Decca in the US. It includes demos from the aborted concept album Lifehouse, part of which became Who's Next...
.
Elton John Band
Having first met Elton John in 1965, and in 1967 helped him to get studio time to record demos at Dick James' studio, where he worked as an engineer. They played together in the Bread and Beer Band, and Quaye produced John's first solo single. Quaye played off and on for more than 10 years with John, both as a session player and later full band member, appearing on all of his earliest recordings and albums as a session player until the beginning of 1972, as well as being a member of Bluesology during 1967/68. He finally fully joined the Elton John Band in May 1975 for the Rock of the WestiesRock of the Westies
Rock of the Westies is the tenth studio album by British singer/songwriter Elton John, released in 1975 .Like Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, Rock of the Westies also debuted on the United States Billboard charts at # 1, the only two albums at that time to have done so...
and Blue Moves
Blue Moves
Blue Moves is the eleventh studio album by British singer/songwriter Elton John, released in 1976. It was also his second double album , and his first album released by his own Rocket Records Ltd...
albums, as well as subsequent 1975/76 Elton tours.
Hall & Oates
In 1978, Quaye along with fellow Elton John Band members Kenny Passarelli and Roger PopeRoger Pope
Roger Pope was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons in 1647. He fought in the Parliamentary army in the English Civil War....
joined Hall & Oates
Hall & Oates
Hall & Oates are an American musical duo composed of Daryl Hall and John Oates. They achieved their greatest fame in the late 1970s and early to mid-1980s. Both sing and play instruments. They specialized in a fusion of rock and roll and rhythm and blues styles, which they dubbed "rock and soul."...
. This group recorded Livetime
Livetime
Livetime is a live album from 1978 by musical group Hall & Oates.Daryl Hall is infamous for being heard asking the crowd at the end of the song "Sara Smile," "How come you didn't like me as a teenager?"...
as well as the September 1978 release Along the Red Ledge
Along the Red Ledge
Along the Red Ledge is the seventh studio album by Hall & Oates, released in 1978.This album foreshadowed what was to come in a few years for the duo, as the duo shed previous producer Christopher Bond and went with a more polished sound with David Foster...
. Caleb also played on Daryl Hall
Daryl Hall
Daryl Hall is an American rock, R&B and soul singer, keyboardist, guitarist, songwriter and producer, best known as the co-founder and lead vocalist of Hall & Oates . Hall scored several Billboard chart hits in the 1970s and early 1980s, and is regarded as one of the best blue eyed soul singers...
's first solo album which also featured Passarelli, Pope, and Robert Fripp
Robert Fripp
Robert Fripp is an English guitarist, composer and record producer. He was ranked 42nd on Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and #47 on Gibson.com’s "Top 50 Guitarists of All Time". Among rock guitarists, Fripp is a master of crosspicking, a technique...
(King Crimson
King Crimson
King Crimson are a rock band founded in London, England in 1969. Often categorised as a foundational progressive rock group, the band have incorporated diverse influences and instrumentation during their history...
).
Christian faith and music ministry
In 1982, Quaye embraced the ChristianChristian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
faith becoming a musician/evangelist
Evangelism
Evangelism refers to the practice of relaying information about a particular set of beliefs to others who do not hold those beliefs. The term is often used in reference to Christianity....
. From 1986 to 1995, Quaye was an Associate Pastor, Chief Musician and Staff Evangelist at the Foursquare Church
International Church of the Foursquare Gospel
The International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, commonly referred to as the Foursquare Church, is an evangelical Pentecostal Christian denomination. As of 2000 it had a worldwide membership of over 8,000,000, with almost 60,000 churches in 144 countries. In 2006, membership in the United States...
in Pasadena
Pasadena, California
Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home to many scientific and cultural institutions, including the California Institute of Technology , the Jet...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. Since 1996, Quaye has served as the National Worship Director for the Foursquare denomination, ministering throughout the United States, England and Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
.
Today Quaye also serves as adjunct faculty at LIFE Pacific College in San Dimas, California
San Dimas, California
San Dimas is a city located in the San Gabriel Valley, in Los Angeles County, California. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 33,371. The city historically took its name from San Dismas Canyon in the San Gabriel Mountains above the northern section of present day San Dimas...
, teaching music and worship leadership. He is also one of the elders in the church that meets in the chapel on campus.
In February 2006, Vision Publishing released Quaye's autobiography, A Voice Louder Than Rock & Roll, in paperback. The book is credited to "Caleb Quaye with Dale A. Berryhill."
From 2008 on, Quaye released two jazz-rock fusion CDs. The first one was One Night in San Dimas, with Out of the Blue as the 2010 follow-up album; both of which he plays his signature model Brazen guitar, loaded with Seymour Duncan pickups.
He now Serves at the Lompoc Foursquare in Lompoc CA