BATEMAN, GIL

Homebase: Seattle, WA.
Stats: 1942-2016
Misc Notes: Gil Bateman was born in Seattle on October 27, 1942. His family originally lived in the Roosevelt neighborhood area, but when his grandfather returned from serving in WWII they all moved out to Three Tree Point in Burien. His father, Arthur Bateman, was a Garfield graduate and an attorney who also played a mean swing piano. Gil sang in school groups in the Highline school district, and was a life-long guitarist. He also took vocal lessons from a prominent local teacher who specialized in operatic training. While attending Menlo College in Palo Alto in 1961 he joined a band. Then during Spring Break he decided to visit back home, and to fill his guitar position, he brought in a lead guitar player to cover for him – a fellow named Jerry that he’d met playing in a local bookstore. Returning from Seattle the band told him: “Gil, you can still be in the band, but Jerry’s our new lead.” The band became the Warlocks, and then the Grateful Dead, and that dude was Jerry Garcia.

After flunking out of college, he returned to Seattle where on October 1, 1965 he performed at Pat O’Day’s Folk-Rock & All Cause Protest Music Festival at the Seattle Center alongside folkies Barry McGuire, P.F. Sloan, Glen Campbell, the Grass Roots Singers, and Spokane’s own Gas Company. Even though O'Day's cynical goal was, in part at least, to mock the many sincere and earnest folkie protesters of those times, the FBI took the event rather more seriously and names were taken and reports filed. [See image below.] That same year Bateman played Conrad Birdie in the Seattle Opera’s Bye Bye Birdie and he also began performing as a solo act at Victor Rosellini’s Four-10 restaurant and The Door nightclub. In addition he started producing various sessions at Audio Recorders with sound engineer, Kearney Barton, and along the way cut a few of his own recordings – including “Wicked Love,” “Daddy Walked In Darkness,” and “How To Do It” – that were issued by Jerry Dennon’s Jerden, Panorama, and Piccadilly labels between 1965 and ’67. Bateman then worked for Dennon as a promotions man and began producing sessions for the labels, receiving production credit on over a dozen 45s released by Dennon -- including the Bards' "Never Too Much Love," the Live Five's "Hunose," and the Sonics’ “Maintaining My Cool” from 1967. Along the way he married, had kids and decided to get into music biz management. In 1968 he was hired as the Regional Director of Promotion for the West Coast for a big-time label, Elektra Records, and from 1969-‘72 served s their National Director of Promotion. In subsequent years he worked similar positions for Tumbleweed Records (1973), Crested Butte Records (1974), and Shelter Records (1974). When Dennon launched his new labels -- Great Northwest Music Company, First American, and Music is Medicine – Bateman was brought aboard to do A&R work, marketing, and/or promotions (1977-’80), and finally from 1982-85 he served as General Manager of West Coast Operations for Windham Hill. Gil Bateman passed away on November 1, 2016. [Thanks to Bateman's daughter, Dayna for providing much of this information!]

search by ARTIST