Quintessential Bass albums?

planetguy

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lot's of great bass playing on "Pressure Drop" and "Double Fun"....two ridiculousy soulful albums from Rob't Palmer in the mid '70's before he went in more of a rock and roll direction.
 

mgod

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Top 4:

Hot Tuna (1st)
Blows Against the Empire
Dock of the Bay - Otis Redding
Turning Point - John Mayall
Very few people remember Steve Thompson, who played for Mayall as he moved from the having-a-drummer to his drummerless period. His right hand and his groove are a very big deal to me.

Going down the list:
All Weather Report albums up to and including Heavy Weather
Lesh - Skullfuck and Europe 72
All Oregon albums
Beatles from Revolver on
Klaus Voorman - its hard to pick out where he's best because he's so minimal. The beginning of the Plastic Ono Band period is probably best to listen to.
Carl Radle. with Leon Russell
All Stax/Volt, all Mototwn
Everything Ray Shulman did (Gentle Giant)
Greg Lake - first KC / ELP albums
Chris Squire - Yes Album, Fragile, Close to the Edge
Tony Levin - Joan Armatrading's "Walk Under Ladders" and on "Discipline" - the first of the 3rd or 4th King Crimson's albums, the red one.
 

lungimsam

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Bobby Womack's album called "The Soul of Bobby Womack Stop on By" is loaded with awesome R&B basslines. "Across 110th Street", "Woman's Gotta Have it", "Daylight", are some of the most beautiful lines I have ever heard. Easy to play too (except for 110th street. a little tricky.). So great, rich lines for beginners or advanced players alike. Great substance and great taste there. Samples below.

My favorite Jack Casady bass playing is from "Won't You Try/Saturday Afternoon" from the Woodstock performance.
I just sing those lines around in my head all the time. They sound so great to me. My favorite out of all the other versions I have heard.
Of course, you have to listen to alot of Airplane albums to get all the different ways he played and tones he used.


Womack "Woamn Gotta Have It"
click on the speaker at the top left side of page:
http://www.allmusic.com/song/t995030
Womack on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTFz5M1vRdo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9wqUruB ... re=related

"Won't You Try/Saturday Afternoon" starts at 1:00 (I think the pitch is a half step higher on this video than the live recording CD here for some reason):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XnGV45BZPU
 

The Guilds of Grot

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Ok this might be a little out there but what the heck.

One of the best recorded bass performances I ever heard is the soundtrack from the 1971 motorcycle movie "On Any Sunday".

The music was written by Dominic Frontiere. (who's wife owned the L.A. Rams.) I believe it was recorded by the wrecking crew with the one and only Carol Kaye on bass.

So if you've got a few minutes check these out!

Sunday Drivin'

Stretchin' Out

The Hillclimb

The movie ending
 

adorshki

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Jazz:
Jimmy Garrison on Coltrane's "Love Supreme"
Also check out Dvae Holland.
And don't forget Jaco Pastorius with Weather Report.
 

mikko

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I know I already wrote a long and boring message to this thread, but somehow I forgot to mention Dennis Dunaway. He is one of my biggest influences of all time. “Pretties For You” and “Easy Action” by (the band called) Alice Cooper are just awesome albums (IMHO of course).
 

Happy Face

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Not really Quintessential. But listening to a CD I made of a Talking Heads concert in August 1979. I was lucky enough to have been there, but this was made from a casette tape made of a later broadcast of the concert on FM radio. Ten years or so later I copied it onto a DAT. Ten years after that I burned it onto a CD.

I mention all that becuase it may expalin the really cool compressed sound of Tina Weymouth's bass playing. Plus it's really up front in the mix.

All that said, she sounds really good in this show. She's really upfront in the mix and it's great! And really good.

I have a faint memory that she was playing a Hofner Club bass.
 

DKB

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If you get a chance, try to find and listen to Dean Peer's solo electric bass album called UCROSS. Pretty amazing stuff.

Then there is Christian McBride. Lovely stuff!
 

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mikko said:
I know I already wrote a long and boring message to this thread, but somehow I forgot to mention Dennis Dunaway. He is one of my biggest influences of all time. “Pretties For You” and “Easy Action” by (the band called) Alice Cooper are just awesome albums (IMHO of course).

Hey mikko, I had the pleasure of seeing him play a music store gig, where he handed me a tambourine and asked me to hang it back on the wall. I told him after the gig that I sucked as a guitarist, but I was so inspired by his playing that I was buying a bass, so I could suck at that too.



He had such a puzzled look on his face...

Keep em coming!
 

bklynbass

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One of the best recorded bass performances I ever heard is the soundtrack from the 1971 motorcycle movie "On Any Sunday".

The music was written by Dominic Frontiere. (who's wife owned the L.A. Rams.) I believe it was recorded by the wrecking crew with the one and only Carol Kaye on bass.

Thanks for posting those clips...Carol Kaye is so amazing!

I wanted to add two players who haven't gotten much mention so far...

Tommy Cogbill: One of the all time great studio musicians. While working at Muscle Shoals' Fame Studio, and the American Sound Studio in Memphis, he played bass on the first three Aretha Franklin Atlantic albums ("I've never loved a man...", "Lady Soul," "Aretha Now,"), "Dusty in Memphis," a ton of Elvis' stuff ("suspicious minds"...), Wilson Pickett's "Funky Broadway," "Memphis Soul Stew" by King Curtis, recordings by the Box Tops, and hundreds of singles released by the Fame team..he also played on and produced music for Neil Diamond including "Sweet Caroline". His playing is so creative, musical and in the pocket; along with Roger Hawkins, he was a member of one of the all time great rhythm sections. He also has the quintessential P-Bass sound and I personally hold him in the same regard as Jamerson, Carol Kaye, Duck Dunn and Joe Osborn.

Herbie Flowers: A studio bassist working in England in the Late 60s and throughout the 70s. He started out as a jazz upright bassist then worked his way into playing with rock musicians. When I first discovered who he was about ten years ago, I slowly came to the realization that he had anonymously played virtually every classic rock bass hook of the 70s that I had grown up hearing.

"Take a Walk on the Wild Side" (both parts)
"Space Oddity" (if you've never really checked out the bass on this song, do yourself a favor and go do it...it's an avant-garde bass masterpiece)
"Rock On" by David Essex (in which he tunes down to a low B and plays through a tape delay to create one of the classic bass riffs of all time)
"Rebel Rebel" by David Bowie (actually he plays on the entire Diamond Dogs record)
"Jump into the Fire" by Nilsson

he also plays on Tumbleweed Connection by Elton John

If anyone has other recordings that they dig by either of these great bassists please feel free to share them.

Happy listening.
 

Ross

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gilded said:
Check out the first three Paul Butterfield Blues Band studio albums ('65 eponymous, '66 East-West and '67 Resurrection of Pigboy Cranshaw) Bassists Jerome Arnold and Bugsy Maugh, are really great. If you learn those bass lines, you could work in Blues bands for the rest of your life.......
The cut "One More Heartache" from the Pigboy Cranshaw LP was a dorm-room fave back then. That bouncy beat from Bugsy put a smile on everyone's face. :D

Also on the blues front, John McVie has had a long career with Mayall & Fleetwood Mac. Never spectacular, but always right there.

I was listening to Bruce Cockburn's 30-year old LP "Stealing Fire" last weekend. Friends & I used to play (or attempt to play) the song "Peggy's Kitchen Wall" which featured an unusual bass line by Fergus Marsh. I tried for the longest time to figure it out properly, but much later someone explained that the bass was double-tracked :oops:

Lastly, as a hobby bassist for many years, I thank Carol Kaye for making it OK to play above the 5th fret. :D
 
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