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Nigel Harrison

Biography

Nigel Harrison (born 24 April 1951) is an English musician. Harrison spent several years as the bassist of the American rock band Blondie during the 1970s and 1980s.

Harrison grew up in Princes Risborough, a small town in the Chiltern Hills. He was the bassist for the local band Farm, and later recorded and toured with Silverhead (fronted by Michael Des Barres) from 1972 to 1974.

On August 11, 1974 he played bass for "Murder of a Virgin", Iggy Pop's first solo performance. He was also an uncredited session bassist for The Runaways debut album when producer and manager Kim Fowley refused to have Runaways bassist Jackie Fox perform on the record. He was recruited to Blondie from Nite City (former The Doors' keyboardist Ray Manzarek's short-lived band) in 1977, after the band recorded their second album Plastic Letters without a regular bass player, and stayed until the band split after Tracks Across America Tour '82.

During his time with Blondie, Nigel Harrison contributed as a songwriter to every album he played on and also co-wrote several hit singles with Debbie Harry, such as "One Way or Another", "Union City Blue" and the band's last single with their most successful line-up, "War Child", released in 1982.

From 1982 to 1984 he was a member of the band Chequered Past, which also included two of his former bandmates: Des Barres, from Silverhead, Steve Jones from The Sex Pistols and Clem Burke, from Blondie. They released an eponymous album in 1984. Harrison was also music supervisor/producer for the soundtrack to the 1988 comedy Tapeheads.

In 1991, he had a small part in a British film Young Soul Rebels as 'Cid Man'.