KELSEYVILLE - Kasim Sulton is not the guy who invented the steamboat.
That was Robert Fulton.

The Brooklyn born Staten Island resident is Meat Loaf's musical director, however, as well as his opening act at Konocti on Saturday, July 6.

"I'll do about 15 mintues of my own songs," Sulton said on the phone earlier this week. "I've always wanted to get up on stage with just a guitar and see what I can do," he added.

That's the acid test - a musician and a guitar - and Sulton passes it with flying colors on his soon to be released solo CD, "Quid Pro Quo," which includes the lovelorn "Before She Was Gone," and the live "Don't Hold Me Back," and will be available via www.KasimSulton.com in August.

He has, however, long ago paid his dues, as they say, backing up - usually on bass but sometimes on piano or vocals - Todd Rundgren, Patti Smith and Patty Smyth, Joan Jett, Mick Jagger, The Indigo Girls, Cheap Trick, Hall & Oates, Ronnnie Spector, Shaun Cassidy, Jim Steinman and so on.

It all started when he was 15 and saw the MC5, with the late Fred "Sonic" Smith, at a Staten Island club. At 20, he was on bass with singer Cherry Vanilla, at the time also David Bowie's publicist. A chance encounter with Bowie's then guitarist, Earl Slick, led to an audition with Todd Rundgren. He passed and was on nine Utopia CDs and has since toured with Rundgren's Power Trio and, these days, Mr. Loaf.

That's what Meat, as his friends call him, told me his name was in a 1978 interview for the Madison Wisconsin Capital Times. We were joking about New York Times style in which, after the first reference, an artist is referred to as Mr. or Ms.

Question: "Is it Mr. Meat or Mr. Loaf?"

Answer: "Mr. Loaf."

Sulton has even written a few songs for Mr. Loaf. However, none of them has made one of his CDs yet.

"One almost made his last release, 'Welcome To The Neighborhood,' Sulton said. "But it got cut.

Mr. Loaf later approached the bassist about writing another song for his latest effort.

"He told me he wanted it to be country and western, " Sulton said. "So I wrote it that way, but I guess it was too good."

Curses - foiled again.

A song, not written by Sulton, from the rock musical "Hedwig And The Angry Inch" is on Mr. Loaf's soon to be released CD, however.

Joan Jett, one of Sulton's many former employers is also on the DVD version of the long running musical. She appears to do a duet with Hedwig resplendent in her bald head. She was playing Tim Curry's role in a broadway revival of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" at the time.

People change. Then they move on.

Thus Kasim Sulton, sideman to the stars, a man who's met Paul McCartney, toured the world with Mr. Loaf, played bass on the megahit CD, "Bat Out Of Hell," and sung lead on Utopia's only hit, "Set Me Free, just wants to do his own songs.

"Like Jimmy Buffett," he concluded.

Copyright 2002 Record-Bee