I recently picked up a copy of 'The Funky Bass Book' (edited by BP's Bill Leigh, Backbeat Books, ISBN 978-087930-994-7, $14.99).
After the British Invasion, what really made me want to play bass was Soul Music. This is an encyclopedia, no doubt culled from the Bass Player archives, of who all those guys were. Past Jamerson and Bootsy and Larry Graham, there's lots of recognition of lots of guys where I knew the tune frontwards and backwards, but were old singles where there were never any credits. This has lots of articles about those guys, and I really can recommend this IF you're into this sort of thing.
So THAT's who played that little scale riff to open Harold Melvin's 'Bad Love' . . . . want to know how Jerry Jemmott wound up on Jaco's tutorial video?
My favorite anecdote: David Hood, the great Muscle Shoals session bassist, tells of Paul Simon calling Stax in Memphis wanting to hire the Jamaican musicians who cut 'I'll Take You There' (cut by Hood and the Muscle Shoals musicians) for his next project. The guy at Stax say,' Jamaican?!? They're white boys from Alabama!'
J o e y
