yuo motown guys, need a hand

[NNbassest]

hey yall,
not sure if this is the right place to put this, if not, mods i apolagize.

anyways.

in the song Tell Me Somthing Good by Rufus and Chaka Khan...what exsactly is that bass player doing? anyone know how to do it, and can show me tabs or the what on how to play it

anything is appreciated
thanks,JJ

[PlayTheBass]

JJ, listen to what the keyboards are doing to help you figure it out. I slap it and it sounds pretty good -- the verse part with the descending G# dorian line needs to be solidly on the upbeats, and you can pop every note for good effect. Then when it drops to the E and F# the slapping gives a nice ballsy effect.

I think the chorus is pretty straightforward.

I heard the live version once and the bass player was playing some pretty tasty stuff, so that might be a good thing to try to get a hold of for ideas.

Sean Mc

[NNbassest]

dude howd u know my name?

ok thanks for the advise

[Bruce Lindfield]

I think the bass guitar line on this is pretty simple and there is no difficult technique involved - (it sounds like a P bass with a pick - but I could be wrong...?)

BUT - what complicates the the original recording, is that there is a very prominent clavinet keyboard bass part, which is all over the place!! Really wild - but I don't think you could ever play the keyboard part(s) on bass guitar ...and why would you want to ?

[Bruce Lindfield]

PS - I don't think this was strictly "Motown" - it was released on MCA...?

[PlayTheBass]

Originally Posted by NNbassest

dude howd u know my name?

ok thanks for the advise

lol I'm psycho! Or psychic, I can't remember which.

Originally Posted by Bruce Lindfield

but I don't think you could ever play the keyboard part(s) on bass guitar ...and why would you want to ?

No, you definitely wouldn't want to even if you could... You're the bass player!! :-) Sorry, I certainly didn't mean to double the keyboard part -- I just meant to listen to it to get ideas of what to play. The goal is to lock in with the keyboardist on the bass notes of the verse part, as that really drives the tune. The cool thing is then in the chorus you can do more of your own thing, and it makes a nice contrast.

[JimK]

Originally Posted by Bruce Lindfield

I think the bass guitar line on this is pretty simple and there is no difficult technique involved - (it sounds like a P bass with a pick - but I could be wrong...?)

I concur.

Originally Posted by Bruce L

BUT - what complicates the the original recording, is that there is a very prominent clavinet keyboard bass part, which is all over the place!! Really wild - but I don't think you could ever play the keyboard part(s) on bass guitar ...and why would you want to ?

Stevie Wonder wrote this tune, hence the funky clavinet thang; I'm drawing a blank if Stevie ever recorded this on one of his own albums.
It's really about the UPbeats on this tune(another one is The Police's "Roxanne").

The LIVE version is Disc_1 of Rufus/Chka Khan's Stompin' At The Savoy...sitting right here on my compooter desk!

[PlayTheBass]

Originally Posted by JimK

I concur.

Stevie Wonder wrote this tune, hence the funky clavinet thang; I'm drawing a blank if Stevie ever recorded this on one of his own albums.
It's really about the UPbeats on this tune(another one is The Police's "Roxanne").

The LIVE version is Disc_1 of Rufus/Chka Khan's Stompin' At The Savoy...sitting right here on my compooter desk!

I don't think Stevie ever recorded it himself, as he really wrote it especially for her.

Thanks for the info on the live version. I wouldn't mind picking that up as I thought it was a pretty good version. How's the rest of the album? And who was the bass player?

[JimK]

Bobby Watson is on the Stompin' At The Savoy album...it's a double album:
Sides 1-2-3 are LIVE
Side 4 was studio("Aint Nobody" was the hit that came outta that...FWIW, "Tell Me Something Good" was a breeze when compared to trying to play "Ain't Nobody" on my 4-string bass. I think we dropped the tune 'cause I never could it happenin').

Watson is a very good R&B bassist; I don't think he was Rufus' original bassist...IMO, he was their best bassist.
Watson is also known for playing the nice line on Michael Jackson's hit, "Rock With You".
The liner notes of Stompin' At The Savoy shows Watson with a couple of P-basses.

[PlayTheBass]

Cool, thanks. It's good to remember that Anthony Jackson wasn't the only great bass player to play with Chaka Khan!