The Man Behind The Sound Of Dr. Dre's "The Chronic" Comes To Winston-Salem

Dr. Dre's album “The Chronic” turns 25 this year. It put West Coast rap on the map and brought new sounds into the world of hip-hop. The architect of those sounds is coming to Winston-Salem for a free seminar at the Stevens Center on May 1.

Multi-instrumentalist Colin Wolfe co-wrote the album with Dr. Dre. He grew up in Southern California, learning to play piano, bass, and drums as a child. Wolfe has composed, produced, and played on hits for Michael Jackson, Madonna, Bjork, Janet Jackson, and Ben Folds, among many others.

But before all that he had a chance encounter with some of the pioneers of gangsta rap.

Interview Highlights

In walks N.W.A.:

Someone hired me to play bass at this place called the China Club. And as I was doing the bass solo, in comes Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, Jerry Heller, L.A. Dre, the whole Ruthless Records camp! And they were looking for a bass player to go on tour with their artist Michel'le. So I got the gig, and then started working on the N.W.A. stuff. Then he [Dr. Dre] left and started doing his own thing - that's when we started working on “The Chronic” album.

Working on “The Chronic”:

I was co-writing, coming up with some of the musical ideas on the keys, key bass, bass. “Nuthin' But A G Thang” was a sample of course, but then on the other ones, they would come up with a drumbeat first and then I would put music on that.

On Moog synthesizers:

We actually started using the Moog on the N.W.A. stuff - that's when we first bought it. We discussed what we wanted the sound to be for this album, and we wanted it to be some crazy, Parliament-Funkadelic sounding like stuff. Of course they used a Moog all the time, Bernie Worrell was a master at that thing.

The Impact of “The Chronic”:

During the time we were making that album was during the riots and all that. All that tension went into that album. Not only that, it was Snoop Dogg's and Tha Dogg Pound's first major thing. Everybody was putting their all into it.

Before the album came out I actually moved to Atlanta. So I didn't realize the impact until I was standing on a corner with a friend, and three out of five cars that passed by was bumpin' the album. We looked at each other like “Oh s—-, this album is blowin' up!"

On the music industry today:

It's turned upside down right now. Labels are getting less and less, that's why they're all merging together. People figured out how to do it themselves now. They outsource their marketing same as anyone else can. There's some good stuff out there, you just have to find it. It's just that the stuff the radio's playing, some of that stuff is just horrible.

Colin Wolfe's "The Chronic" will be at The Stevens Center in Winston-Salem on 5/1/17 at 7:30 p.m. The event is free, but you must register for a ticket here. Wolfe will also be at Moogfest in Durham, NC.