Warren Haynes Pens Heartfelt Eulogy For Tower Of Power’s Rocco Prestia

Another great loss to our world of music. Rocco was influential beyond belief- if you don’t believe me ask a bass player. Every bass player I know is/was a fan of Rocco Prestia. Jaco Pastorius, arguably the greatest electric bass player of all times, was a huge fan of Rocco. Allen Woody, my partner in crime, was an enormous Rocco fan. If you want to hear Rocco’s influence on Woody look no further than the song MULE from our 1st LP. Woody always gave credit to Rocco for that, saying that he just translated that style which Rocco originally played with his fingers on a Fender bass to him playing with a pick, on a Gibson bass….with a nasty tone.

I’ll never forget the first time I heard TOWER OF POWER. I was a young teenager in my hometown of Asheville, NC and happened to be hanging out at a place called THE PINBALL WIZARD which was, as you might expect, a game room-pool hall-video arcade that my friends and I frequented. As luck would have it there was a high-end stereo shop next door and I used to go in there and listen to the really good expensive sound systems. They would ask me what music I wanted to hear and they would play it over these amazing sounding stereo systems which was a huge thrill at that time, especially if there was some “herbal influence” involved- and this particular evening there was. The guy running the place asked me if I had ever heard TOWER OF POWER to which I replied “no” so he began to turn me on to some of the funkiest, freshest, most soulful, badass music I had ever heard. Amazing drumming, killer horns, great soulful singing, wicked organ, cool jazzy guitar, and “who the fuck was that bass player?” I had never heard anything like it. Being raised on James Brown and well-schooled in soul music I had heard a lot of diverse music that was all under the umbrella of “soul” or “funk” but this was different. It was more jazzy in some ways. The horn charts were very sophisticated and very staccato and the rhythm section was tighter in some ways than even James Brown’s. Drummer was crushing and “who the fuck was that bass player?” That’s when I discovered Francis “Rocco” Prestia. His style was different than all the “funk” bass players I had heard up until that point. It was like crossing James Jamerson with some sped-up New Orleans tuba. Full-on sixteenth notes with this muting technique that added that tuba quality to the sound, Rocco approached the same grooves I had heard before with a totally unique slant all his own that expanded the musical horizon in a fresh new way. He created his own style of bass-playing. I’ve used this analogy before but fittingly: when you say to someone “play it like Rocco Prestia” every bass player worth their salt knows what you are talking about. There is no higher compliment in our world of music.

I didn’t know Rocco very well but am very grateful that he agreed to be part of our DEEP END sessions after Woody passed away. For those not familiar with our recordings THE DEEP END vols. 1 and 2, they were the first two Gov’t Mule recordings released after Allen Woody died and the only way we knew to move forward without feeling the pressure of replacing someone who was virtually irreplaceable. We recorded with 25 of the greatest bassists in the world, many of which were Woody’s personal heroes and many which were friends he admired. Rocco Prestia was definitely among those at the top of the list of who Woody would want to be there and was one of the first we recruited. Matt and myself, along with our friend Johnny Neel, went into a studio in Northern California to record with Rocco whom none of us had ever met and we hit it off instantly. He was very amicable, funny, and easy going and made us all feel comfortable which is key to a recording environment. We jammed for quite a while (all of which was recorded) just to get warmed up then we launched into what would become our version of WHAT IS HIP? We were feeling a little funny about asking him to play WHAT IS HIP as he had obviously played it a thousand times but for each of us it was a very influential song and it was an especially big song in Allen Woody’s grab-bag pantheon of influences.

I have very fond memories of those sessions. To this day however none of us have ever listened to the jams that were recorded. With the 20th Anniversary of the DEEP END sessions approaching I’ve been thinking a lot about all those jams with Rocco, among many other bassists during those sessions, and have been looking forward to hearing them all for the first time. With his passing it will be very bittersweet but I feel there’s a lot of unmined gold in those tapes.

The last time I saw Rocco we all went on a night off during Gov’t Mule’s tour to see TOWER OF POWER. He had been battling health issues for a while at that point but as always he sounded fantastic. The last thing he said to me was something along the lines of “I hope we get to play together again soon. Let’s play something other than WHAT IS HIP?”. Sad to say we did not get that opportunity. -WH