Bob Bain born 26 January 1924

Bob Bain (26 January 1924 – 21 June 2018) was perhaps the most-heard, yet unmentioned guitarist in history. With his trusty Telecaster, he created the soundtrack to American pop culture in the latter half of the 20th century, playing on sessions with legendary artists ranging from Frank Sinatra to Quincy Jones.  Bain’s work has influenced almost every guitarist who came along after him, whether they realize it or not. 

Robert Furniss Bain was born in Chicago, Illinois. His musical life began playing bass with the high school orchestra and guitar on the side. After graduating, he hit the road playing bass with a trio featuring guitarist Joe Wolverton. Bain settled into the Los Angeles club scene and continued playing bass behind guitar mentors, most important of all the great Les Paul. In 1942, he joined Freddy Slack's band where he met Barney Kessel, who sat in one night. This contact led to Bain joining a group called the Phil Moore Four and One More, one of the first West Coast groups to play the new bebop style and one of the first interracial bands on the L.A. scene. This group also led to the first contact with Sinatra, when the singer decided to cut his own disc in the bop style, "Bop Goes My Heart."

During the second World War, Bain wound up in a U.S.O. group in Europe with actor George Raft and singers Louise Albritton and June Clyde. He returned home in 1945 and joined the big band of Tommy Dorsey, featuring Buddy Rich on drums. He is credited with guitar on one of Dorsey's biggest hits, "Opus No. 1".Sick of the constant spatting between this egotistical drummer Dorsey, Bain moved after two years to the more relaxed Bob Crosby Big Band. Meanwhile, the guitarist's own band, the San Fernando Playboys, was making recordings in the studio of Les Paul (i.e., his living room).

Bain later played and recorded with Harry James and his big band and Andre Previn's trio. Previn was working at MGM and was one of the first film composers to write parts for the electric guitar, which he brought Bain in to play. The guitar intro section to Nat King Cole's "Mona Lisa" was Bain's idea. Bain was ahead of the pack when it came to sight-reading, a talent many guitarists got by without in the '40s. This led to his first-call status in the world of jingles, radio broadcasts, and film and television scores.

Bain was an unusually early adopter of the electric guitar, playing an early Gibson Les Paul model before switching to a modified 1953 Fender Telecaster. Like most jazz guitarists, he also favoured semi-acoustic models such as the Gibson L-5 and ES-150. A long time collaborator with composer Henry Mancini, he is also credited with the instantly recognisable guitar introduction to the theme from the popular 1950's television private detective series "Peter Gunn". The soundtrack album from the series features several other memorable contributions of Bain's. Bain also contributed guitar on another of Mancini's significant soundtrack albums, the musical score to the movies "Breakfast at Tiffany's" , “The Magnificent Seven “and “Dr. Zhivago”, where he played the balalaika in the score for certain scenes where “Lara’s Theme” is heard. 

                              

Bain recorded three albums and a few singles for capitol Records between 1958 and 1960. Session work included countless TV soundtracks including Breakfast At Tiffany’s, Dr. Zhivago, The Magnificent Seven, The Pink Panther, Ozzie and Harriet, Mission Impossible, Bonanza, Batman, The Adams Family and The Munsters. Sometimes he recorded on other string instruments, such as mandolin and banjo. 

Examples of his banjo picking can be heard on the soundtracks to Thoroughly Modern Millie and Around the World in 80 Days, two of the hundreds of film scores he played on. By the '70s, a new crowd of studio guitarists began to dominate. Bain continued to record, write, arrange, produce, and also regularly played in Doc Severinsen’s band on The Tonight Show from 1972 to ’92—the last 20 years that Johnny Carson hosted. 

Bain continued to perform until the 2010s, mainly at monthly jazz gigs at his favourite Southern California restaurants. Most recently he performed with the legendary George Van Eps and in 2015 with John Pisano. 

In the field of jazz he was involved in 210 recording sessions between 1943 and 2008. Bain died of heart failure at his beachfront home in Oxnard on June 21, 2018. He was 94. 

(Edited mainly from AllMusic & Wikipedia)