Mountain Bikes, Bass Guitar, and other stuff I like

I must be on an 80s R&B kick. This Luther Vandross tune has been on repeat lately.  Luther wrote the bass part and that is Marcus Miller playing.  Marcus has such a distinct, clear sound and it's been great to explore more of Marcus' music lately. This is another essential slap and pop bass example.  Plenty of space around the notes.  This song has a lot of great breaks, which only add to the funk!

 This week's track is an 80s funk classic.  It was inspired by my daughter's recent viewing of Men in Black.  It's Patrice Rushen's extremely danceable hit "Forget Me Nots."   Yes, Will Smith remade it into Men in Black in the late 90s as you may recall. On this blog though, I'm all about that bass and Freddie Washington is one slick mister on this track. It's definitely a slap-and-pop tour de force with great usage of octaves on the F# and D notes.  It's hard to imagine this song with any other bassline and again, the bass does not overplay, only serving what the song needs. There are plenty of nice fills too with hammers and slides thrown in occasionally. When I play this on bass, I literally can't help but dance along.  What a groove! This is definitely a great track to woodshed if you're looking at starting your funk repertoire!  (A quick internet search will reveal bass tablatures)  Enjoy!

 I heard this song on a run today and realized what a great bass part it has.  That's Tina Weymouth from  Talking Heads' playing on "Born Under Punches."  Tina, in my opinion, is a consistently underrated bassist.  She really has such a minimalist style. This bassline does exactly what it needs to and nothing more, simple and effective.  It definitely gets bonus points for being in such a quirky time signature as well!  She also uses space and air between notes to provide extra, er, punch.   It's such a strange song frankly, with typical Talking Heads bizarre lyrics, seemingly random guitar licks and synth for that matter. Tina's part could've fallen through the cracks and her slap-and-pop style on the track helps the bass break through the mix a bit. This song is a great example of bass parts that just groove and are perfect in their simplicity.  Enjoy and thanks for reading!