Anyone here (still) playing "Low Rider?"

[FunkHead]

Bass line Boring? Huh? It wasn't boring 50 years ago & it still grooves to this day. Yes it was a Harmonica along with the horns.

I think a lot of groups could pull Lowrider off. You'd really have to own it if you were doing the Harmonica part with no horns beside you. Drummer should have that Latin feel too. I play with this Drummer from Cuba and he loves stuff like Lowrider & a lot of Santana songs...Best drummer but too drunk by 3rd set.(still worth it for me)

 

[jerry]

Lee Oskar kicks some major ass on that harp. War was an L.A. jam band. Jerry Goldstein took them on and added Lee Oskar to the lineup. I rank Oskar's harp skills right up there with Brian Jones of the Stones. After that was when Eric Burdon fronted them and placed "Spill The Wine" in the annals of music history. Another War tune that gets everyone on the dance floor and is a crowd pleaser.

Apparently, keyboardist Lonnie Jordan owns the rights to the name. The band started disintegrating with Papa Dee Allen's death on stage. He had a cerebral aneurism and was dead before he hit the floor. Other things like Charles Millers getting shot to death during an attempted robbery (he was the victim; not the perpetrator) led to the band falling apart. Eventually, Jordan resurrected the band with non-original members.

Fast forward about 20 years ago when Howard Scott, B.B. Dickerson, Harold Brown, and Lee Oskar reformed to create "The Low Rider Band". I heard and saw both incarnations. IMHO, they were more authentic to the original War sound than any of Jordan's War lineups. B.B Dickerson was one of my influences. Sadly, he recently passed.

I saw War with Lonnie one time and the were kicking keyboard bass, something inherently wrong with keyboard bass playing the War catalog.

 

[Pocket Dave]

Bass line Boring? Huh? It wasn't boring 50 years ago & it still grooves to this day. Yes it was a Harmonica along with the horns.

I think a lot of groups could pull Lowrider off. You'd really have to own it if you were doing the Harmonica part with no horns beside you. Drummer should have that Latin feel too. I play with this Drummer from Cuba and he loves stuff like Lowrider & a lot of Santana songs...Best drummer but too drunk by 3rd set.(still worth it for me)

While I steer a wide berth around any player who gets too drunk to keep it together, there's a non-drunk, pro drummer in D/FW I've worked with a few times who's from Havana, Cuba, Idalberto Perdomo, who just CRUSHES this sort of thing - along with just about any other sort of thing. Guy's an absolute blast to play with.

 

[Grinderman]

Low Rider is a cringe boomer song

Ty Segall does not agree.

 

[Lowendtech]

Ty Segall does not agree.

What’s in the sammy? Looks like Marmite and some kinda meat.

 

[Grinderman]

What’s in the sammy? Looks like Marmite and some kinda meat.

Fudge... I think. The record is called "Invalid Link Removed".

 

[BlueTalon]

I've played Low Rider before, and it gets a good response. It got especially great responses when we played it in biker bars. However...

I couldn't sing it and play that bass line. So I had to cheat the bass line a little. The change was subtle, and I only did it when I was actually singing. It passed the biker bar test, so I know it will work anywhere.

 

[Topkat13]

Not in years so I just did.

 

[Rabidhamster]

BL wants to learn "Low Rider." He's started playing harmonica on a few songs and that song has harmonica on it. I've playing it before, but not on bass, in another band and it never went over very well, and it's old, but that's okay, at least it's a song that's new to us, so we'll see.

I think I can do the bass part even though it's super repetitive and boring, but my question is about the guitar part. It's on the right side in the headphones and plays that one part throughout the entire song. Does anyone know what that part definitely is? YT video has something similiar but different from what I'm hearing.

I'm pretty sure our guitar player will (1) not work on the song at all, just planning on winging it, and (2) of course not hear and pick up on that part, which I think will add to the song, instead of just playing the chord. BTW is that song in G or Gm or just one of those where the 3rd is undefined?

I'm trying to decide whether to mention it to him or not.

I love that song when it’s done well, especially w a good horns and bass band.
Super repetitive and boring is bassist bread and butter.

But The low rider is a little higher.

 

[fourfinger]

In my youth, Low Rider taught me a lesson that I really needed to learn: when a groove requires repetition, there’s a world of difference between the grind of “I have to play this song” and the joy of “I am letting this song play ME”

 

[cymbop]

On a Cinco de Mayo gig one time (yes, I know War isn't actually Mexican) we pulled a segue to Low Rider out of Mama Told Me Not to Come. Randy Newman version, of course.

 

[factory presets]

Wait. Are you serious? Why are you even in a band with people who think that's harmonica?

Got to say I can hardly hear sax for all the harmonica articulations in the Cheech and Chong vid.

 

[Richland123]

Did you ever hear Gary Hoey's cover of Low Rider?

 

[jerry]

Did you ever hear Gary Hoey's cover of Low Rider?

I think that's Tony Franklin on bass for that cut, I played with a guitarist buddy that favored Hoey's cover.

 

[twinjet]

BL wants to learn "Low Rider." He's started playing harmonica on a few songs and that song has harmonica on it. I've playing it before, but not on bass, in another band and it never went over very well, and it's old, but that's okay, at least it's a song that's new to us, so we'll see.

I think I can do the bass part even though it's super repetitive and boring, but my question is about the guitar part. It's on the right side in the headphones and plays that one part throughout the entire song. Does anyone know what that part definitely is? YT video has something similiar but different from what I'm hearing.

I'm pretty sure our guitar player will (1) not work on the song at all, just planning on winging it, and (2) of course not hear and pick up on that part, which I think will add to the song, instead of just playing the chord. BTW is that song in G or Gm or just one of those where the 3rd is undefined?

I'm trying to decide whether to mention it to him or not.

Could have been Mustang Sally.

 

[Rolling Thunder]

Ty Segall does not agree.

Love his band Fuzz

 

[basseux]

the bass part even though it's super repetitive and boring

If this is boring it's the sign the rythm section is not grooving.

And this won't work with that song.

 

[rogerb]

Listening to it again, I’d say fingers not a pick. Other than the slide up to the D or grace note if you it want to call it that, I think it is hammer ons for the FGFG or variances at the end of the lick.

 

[Ekulati]

Got to say I can hardly hear sax for all the harmonica articulations in the Cheech and Chong vid.

That's a hard no. Alto sax.

 

[Al Rivera]

I've played Low Rider before, and it gets a good response. It got especially great responses when we played it in biker bars. However...

I couldn't sing it and play that bass line. So I had to cheat the bass line a little. The change was subtle, and I only did it when I was actually singing. It passed the biker bar test, so I know it will work anywhere.

Definitely a tough one to sing and play bass on,the struggle is real for singing bass players.