Fabulously Flamboyant Fridays – A Nice Firm Bottom

Welcome back my friends, to the flamboyance that never ends, as Fabulously Flamboyant Fridays proudly present yet another light-loafered, lubed-up and luxuriant leap over the pavilion-end puddles of musical magnificence.

Tonight’s missive will probe the bottom end, but will do so in the best possible taste. Tonight we explore the musical contributions of some of my favourite slappers, pluckers and fingerers of the lower regions. Laydees and Gentlebodies, I give you the unsung heroes of rock ‘n’ pop, the rumble-meisters par excellence – bass players.

As a young ‘un, I, like many of my generation, was always in and out of local bands. It was a generational thing – everyone was in a band. If you weren’t in one, you wanted to be, and once you were in one, you immediately wanted to be in a better one; and most of us were in several at any given time. I never made any progress beyond the local pub and club circuit, but I have absolutely no regrets. It was tremendous fun and the perfect university-of-life education that prepared me for a lifetime of work in the music, touring, festival and live events industries.

My weapon of choice was that most masturbatory of musical instruments, the electric guitar. I was, it has to be said, a guitarist of very limited ability and even less talent. Lady Cutlery (a proper musician – she can even read those blobby things on the lines) was fond of introducing me to her musical colleagues as “a pentatonic bluffer with too many overdrive pedals”. Her cruel judgement was as shrewd as it was sound.

My lack of talent was important, because, as anyone who was part of a popular beat combo in the 60s and 70s will confirm, there was an absolutely unbreakable – but very pertinent – golden rule contained within the holy text of rock scripture:

“…and lo, when the assembly of brethren findeth not a skilled practitioner of the bass amongst their number, the one deemed most lowly in their midst shall be cast down and burdened with humble deeds…”

In other words, if you couldn’t find a competent bass player, the least talented guitarist in the band got lumbered with the dreaded 4-string thump. Being relegated to the bass did of course bring great shame upon you, your family and your ancestors. It wasn’t quite as bad as having a convicted pervert in the family, but it was pretty much up there.

Sadly, I faced this humiliation with great regularity, but I really didn’t mind: I was still on stage, I was still having fun and I was still making music. Besides, playing bass was a complete doddle. I had to be reasonably compos mentis to play guitar, but I could be completely wasted and still play bass. Only one finger required, no talent necessary, no experience needed. Any fool could do it, many fools did.

And so all was well in my 4-stringed world, until the fateful day I was asked to play a song on which James Jamerson had played the bass. The song in question was Stevie Wonder’s “For Once In My Life”. So I had a listen, the blood drained from my face and the scales fell from my eyes.

I should probably explain, James Jamerson is a bass guitar legend. He was the (almost) anonymous bass playing maestro who anchored the Motown house band in the 60s. I say almost anonymous, because session players were rarely credited on recordings back then. But this man had legions of fans and admirers around the world – even though almost nobody knew his name. When Jamerson started his career, the bass in pop music was little more than a utilitarian support instrument. Jamerson helped change all that with funky syncopation, bass guitar chords, gospel-style harmony, fluid melodies, a host of trademark moves and his magnificent ability to make bass lines sing.

Jamerson’s bass work on Stevie Wonder’s For Once In My Life was magical to me back then, and it still is now. It’s one of Jamerson’s best: it joyfully weaves it’s way around the melody, supporting here, augmenting there, leaving space when necessary, driving when needed – it’s a bass playing masterclass. It sounded effortless for Jamerson, but for me – a primitive “roots ‘n’ fifths” thumper – I simply didn’t know where to begin.

Happily, a more accomplished mate was able to produce a rough chord and tablature sheet to get me started. It wasn’t accurate, but it was enough to allow me to bluff my way through on stage. But getting to grips with that song was a very rude awakening. There was more – much, much more – to this bass playing lark than I had ever realised, and thus began my love affair with the instrument which lasted until arthritis forced me to stop playing, just a few years ago.

So Jamerson was my first bass hero. He expanded the possibilities for bass players everywhere, performed on a staggering roster of hit records (including well over 30 No.1 singles) and inspired generations of bass players. When Rolling Stone magazine ran a poll, James Jameson was quite rightly named as the most influential electric bass player of all time.

Studying the work of Jamerson eventually brought me to the work of the American producer, composer, musician and very gifted bass player, Bernard Edwards – perhaps most famous for his tremendous work with the legendary Nile Rodgers and Chic

Bernard Edwards’ bass lines were hugely influential and became a central pillar of the 70’s disco movement. It’s been suggested his bass line from Good Times is the most copied piece of music in pop history. This sort of claim is, of course, entirely unverifiable and always debatable, but what isn’t in doubt is the huge influence his work had on others. The first rap song to become a mainstream hit (the Sugarhill Gang’s Rapper’s Delight) credited Good Times as a primary inspiration, and Queen’s Another One Bites the Dust (with its very Edwards-esque bass line) was written by John Deacon (Queen’s bass player) after he spent time hanging out in the studio with Edwards. And Duran Duran’s John Taylor (a very underrated musician, in my humble opinion) is one of the many bass players who cite Edwards as a primary influence – as do I.

So it was Motown, disco, soul and funk that taught me how to play bass. But as much as I love these genres, it was rock music that was my main addiction – and particularly the work of King Crimson. Their 1974 album, Red, astonished me on release and 50 years on it remains one of my all-time favourite albums. The bass player on that album was the great John Wetton, and I soon became obsessed by his aggressive, over-driven, muscular style.

Wetton was a tremendously talented individual who certainly had a varied and colourful career. As well as providing bass and lead vocals for King Crimson, he was also a member of a whole string of great bands. Over his long career Wetton was a member of Family, Roxy Music, Uriah Heep, UK, Wishbone Ash and, of course, his greatest commercial success, Asia.

Wetton founded Asia, fronted the band, providing both bass guitar and lead vocals, and he was also the primary songwriter on their massively successful, 1982 multi-platinum debut album.

Rock legend has it that Asia were formed as the result of a right ol’ rollocking from John Kalodner, the president of Geffen Records. Kalodner allegedly gave Wetton a proper ear-bending for wasting his time and talent in Bryan Ferry’s backing band. Kalodner’s nagging apparently paid off, because Wetton soon started writing new material with ex-Yes guitarist Steve Howe and eventually produced the blueprint for a new band. Geoff Downes (ex-Buggles and Yes) jumped on board to tinkle the ivories and Carl Palmer (ex-Emerson, Lake & Palmer) signed on to thump the tubs. The band named themselves Asia, headed into the studio and promptly produced an absolute monster of an album.

Asia’s eponymous debut – promoted by some astonishingly cheesy videos – captured the early-80’s MTV zeitgeist and became one of the bestselling albums of the decade. It sold over 10 million copies worldwide, made the band a household name across the globe, and proved to be the absolute peak of Wetton’s career (in commercial terms at least).

Unfortunately, Mr. Wetton seems to have enjoyed his new-found fame and fortune with perhaps a touch too much enthusiasm. Wetton’s drinking capacity was legendary and many assumed, when he was fired from his own band in 1983, that this was at least in part due to over-indulgence affecting both his writing and performance standards.

Whatever the reason for Wetton’s departure, it left Asia in a spot of bother as they now needed a singer and bass player for the very high-profile gigs they had already lined up – including a live MTV broadcast from the Budokan. As they had just shoved one ex-King Crimson bass player and vocalist out of the door, they naturally turned to another ex-King Crimson bass player and vocalist to replace him – Greg Lake.

Greg Lake was a very fine singer and musician. He wrote his first hit record aged just 12 (called Lucky Man, it would become the first hit single for Emerson, Lake & Palmer about a decade later) and became a full-time musician at 17. Guitarist Robert Fripp invited him to join King Crimson as lead singer and bassist and they quickly found commercial success with their influential debut album, In the Court of the Crimson King – regarded by many as the first true progressive rock album.

Lake left the band in 1970 and went on to achieve significant global success in the ’70s and beyond as the singer, guitarist, bassist and producer of Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Because of this long standing link with Carl Palmer, it’s perhaps unsurprising that it was Lake to whom Asia turned when they desperately needed a replacement to come off the bench and fill in for the departing John Wetton on both bass and vocals.

Lake later said he thought Palmer was going to ask to borrow a guitar or something, when his old pal called to ask for a favour. He was therefore somewhat taken aback when he was actually asked to replace Wetton for a run of live gigs at the Budokan – particularly as there was almost no time for rehearsals. Nevertheless, Lake agreed to play the gigs, MTV got their live broadcast and the results, given the less-than-ideal circumstances, were very, very good indeed. I’m honestly struggling to think of another musician who could have jumped in at the last minute and delivered as fine a performance as Greg Lake did. Unsurprisingly, Lake was promptly asked to join Asia on a full-time basis, but he politely declined.

And as we’ve already had an Asia track tonight, I think we’ll have a Greg Lake solo piece (with a little help from Prokofiev). Additionally, as the nights are now really starting to draw in, I think we can probably justify playing this one:

Under the influence of these great players, and many others, including Mark King, Colin Hodgkinson (perhaps my favourite bass player), Tony Levin, Stanley Clarke, Jaco Pastorius, Chris Squire and John Entwistle, I eventually developed an aggressive, full and busy style of playing. I was very taken with my technical progress, but others were less impressed and I was soon being accused of over-playing. This is a very serious criticism for a bass player and one that needed to be addressed with alacrity. Economy of style was what I needed, so I looked around for inspiration and settled on one of the absolute best in the business – Phil Lynott.

Phil Lynott was the founder, bass player, front-man, lead vocalist and primary songwriter for the rock band Thin Lizzy – and his economy of style was a wonder to behold. He wrote the hits, so he could have added as many flashy and show-off bass lines as he wanted. But he didn’t. Lynott’s bass work was always just what the doctor ordered: economical, efficient, pertinent and – crucially – his playing always served the song he was performing.

Because Thin Lizzy were such a hugely successful Irish rock band, many assume Lynott was born and bred in the emerald isle. But he was actually yet another of the seemingly countless West Midlands lads who ended up dominating 1970s rock music in the UK. Born in Bromwich, he was later raised by his grand parents in Dublin and cut his musical teeth on the Irish show-band circuit. Lynott played bass with a pick, something I was never comfortable with, but I found his tight, to-the-point, and thoroughly economical bass playing technique hugely helpful, and I learned a lot from studying his form and style.

Anyway, although we’ve barely scratched the surface of the many bass players I admire (we may pick this up again at a later date), I think that’s yer lot for this week’s Fabulously Flamboyant Friday.

By the way, the featured image accompanying this article is one of the late, great, Chris Squire (the original, hugely talented and much-missed bass player of Yes) playing his legendary (and slightly ludicrous) triple-necked bass. The last time I saw that guitar, it was hanging on the wall of a Hard Rock Cafe in New York, but I actually had the honour of playing it once – very briefly – when I did some work on the UK leg of a Yes tour. It was a staggeringly heavy piece of kit and it really did need a 6′ 4″ bear of a man like Squire to wield it with any poise or dignity. It was, however, a wonderful instrument to play.

Anyway, as we started tonight with some South Park, I think we’ll wrap things up for this evening with a little more of the same. Our final bass player for this evening is Geddy Lee, the multi-instrumental frontman of the rather splendid and much-missed Canadian rock band, Rush. Geddy Lee is a man who goes on annual cheese holidays and in his spare time helped Rush become one of the biggest rock bands on the planet. He has also, along the way, managed to develop a simply gorgeous bass tone.