The bass guitar as an instrument, an industry and a recorded sound.
Section 02
Named players, documented recordings, and what the low end was actually doing on the tracks you already know.
7 pieces in this section
Start here
James Jamerson played the Motown catalogue on a 1962 Precision with flatwound strings he was reluctant to change — the accumulated grime and looseness of those strings is part of the recorded sound. Covers his technique, the Funk Brothers session context, and the question of why his name did not appear on the labels.
Carol Kaye was a guitarist on the Wrecking Crew sessions who picked up a bass in 1963 and played on more recorded tracks than almost anyone — the debate about which sessions she played versus Jamerson remains unresolved.
Weather Report's Heavy Weather (1977) put Jaco Pastorius's fretless Bass of Doom in front of a mainstream jazz audience, and the harmonics on 'Teen Town' had players pulling frets out of their own instruments within months.
John Entwistle's request to Rotosound for a roundwound bass string produced the Swing Bass 66 set and changed the recorded character of the instrument permanently — everything bright about rock bass comes out of that exchange.
Paul McCartney's 1963 Höfner 500/1 — the instrument on most of the early Beatles recordings — disappeared after a 1972 rehearsal and was recovered in 2024.
Thundercat — Stephen Bruner — plays a six-string Ibanez and has made the bass a lead melodic instrument on recordings with Kendrick Lamar and Flying Lotus without the instrument ceasing to function as a bass.
Pino Palladino recorded Paul Young's 'Wherever I Lay My Head' on fretless in 1983 and has since appeared on D'Angelo's Voodoo, Who records and D'Angelo's Black Messiah — switching between fretless, electric and upright without a consistent instrument identity.