Tal Wilkenfeld
You can add Tal Wilkenfeld’s name to the list of world-class musicians who call Nashville home. The bass phenom relocated to the city from Los Angeles last month and is celebrating her move with a show at 3rd and Lindsley Friday night with guitar ace Tom Bukovac, which they’re billing as “Tal Kin Buk.”
“I’ve been thinking about moving to Nashville for a few years, but I’ve just been so settled in Los Angeles,” Wilkenfeld tells the Scene during a recent interview. “Every time I go to Nashville, I just love the music community there, and I love the musicians there. It’s amazing that everybody I’ve met already and played music with or written songs with, I’ve had a real deep connection with.”
Wilkenfeld, whose first name is pronounced “tall,” is a talented singer, songwriter and recording artist in her own right with a pair of well-regarded albums to her credit and another due within the next year. But she is best known for her bass work with other artists. By age 21, she had toured the world with both Chick Corea and Jeff Beck. Beck also tapped her for a weeklong residency in November 2007 at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in London, which was recorded and filmed for his Live at Ronnie Scott’s album and DVD. The following year, she got a call from Prince, which led to sessions at his Paisley Park Studios in Minneapolis. Those recordings were finally released in 2021 on the posthumous album Welcome 2 America.
After those projects, the demand grew for Wilkenfeld’s bass services. Over the past decade-and-a-half, the Australia-born musician has recorded with an array of legendary artists, including Ringo Starr, Brian Wilson, Buddy Guy, Todd Rundgren, Dr. John, Joe Walsh, Rod Stewart, Wayne Shorter, David Gilmour, Billy Gibbons, Carlos Santana and Jackson Browne.
Her first visit to Nashville was in 2015 to work on Keith Urban’s 2016 album Ripcord. More recently, she played at the Ryman in December as part of the Allman Betts Family Revival concert and worked with producer Tom Hambridge on Buddy Guy’s forthcoming album Ain’t Done With the Blues, due to be released July 30. But Wilkenfeld’s most consequential connection to Nashville was with string-instrument repair guru Joe Glaser at Glaser Instruments.
“Whenever I get instruments worked on, I have Joe Glaser work on them because he’s so great,” she says, “and I met other musicians either through him or at his store.”
One of the musicians she met this way was Bukovac, a top-rated session player. They decided to celebrate Wilkenfeld’s move to Music City by getting together with some other musicians for a night of covers. That was the genesis of the Tal Kin Buk show, the name of which is a riff on the title of Steve Wonder’s 1972 album Talking Book. Wilkenfeld is looking forward to her first headlining gig in her new adopted hometown.
“I have a full band of some of the most amazing musicians,” she says excitedly. In addition to Bukovac, Wilkenfeld will be accompanied by multi-instrumentalist Bryan Sutton, keyboardist Michael Rojas, steel guitarist Russ Pahl and drummer Greg Morrow. Rodney Crowell, with whom she has done some co-writing, also will join them as a special guest vocalist.
Now that she is getting settled in Nashville, Wilkenfeld wants to spend more time on her songwriting. She points to Leonard Cohen and Jackson Browne as two of her primary influences.
“Both of those guys are so lyric-centric. When I went to Nashville and noticed everyone actually feels that way there — like, the lyric is king — it made me feel so at home, you know, like a big warm hug.”
