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Blues Players who walk

lexington125

lexington125

Sep 11, 2013
644
390
hollywood, baby......
#1
Some blues bassists almost never walk, they specialize in coming up with a riff that they just move to follow the changes. (they might walk on one song per night, but its almost a novelty to them) Others are more rhythmic and the note choice is secondary to the syncopated groove. Some, like Duck Dunn or Tommy Shannon, walk occasionally. Others, like Keith Ferguson walked often; you could say it was his default or starting point - he'd walk unless the song required something else.

I'm looking for other blues bass players who walk more often than not. I'm not talking about guys who play 50s style rock songs and just 'walk' variations of R-3-5-6-7b all night long. I'm looking for guys who give their fretboard a work out and push the boundaries blues by playing what are essentially jazz walking bass line in a traditional blues band. To be a bit obsessive about it, while the occasional ghost note or triplet are OK, I'm looking for guys who can groove quarter notes all night long.

For me, walking bass is the ultimate bassline as it performs the textbook goal of supporting both harmony and rhythm. I've found other band members really like walking bass as it outlines the chord changes while relentlessly driving the beat forward. So help me find some blues bassists who really walk the walk.
 
#5
lexington125 said:
Some blues bassists almost never walk, they specialize in coming up with a riff that they just move to follow the changes. (they might walk on one song per night, but its almost a novelty to them) Others are more rhythmic and the note choice is secondary to the syncopated groove. Some, like Duck Dunn or Tommy Shannon, walk occasionally. Others, like Keith Ferguson walked often; you could say it was his default or starting point - he'd walk unless the song required something else.

I'm looking for other blues bass players who walk more often than not. I'm not talking about guys who play 50s style rock songs and just 'walk' variations of R-3-5-6-7b all night long. I'm looking for guys who give their fretboard a work out and push the boundaries blues by playing what are essentially jazz walking bass line in a traditional blues band. To be a bit obsessive about it, while the occasional ghost note or triplet are OK, I'm looking for guys who can groove quarter notes all night long.

For me, walking bass is the ultimate bassline as it performs the textbook goal of supporting both harmony and rhythm. I've found other band members really like walking bass as it outlines the chord changes while relentlessly driving the beat forward. So help me find some blues bassists who really walk the walk.
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All famous 'blues' bass players at 'that' level, I believe that they can "groove quarter notes all night long" if they want.

Wouldn't it be so boring 'blues band' if the bass line constantly 'walking bass'? Perhaps that's why it's almost no one you found.

Anyway if your intention is to learn the players' playing, walking bass in blues music can (or perhaps even better to) be learned from "other than 'blues (band) bass players' only".
People like Ray Brown, even if he's not a 'Blues Player" like what you mean, He plays 'walking blues bass line' every time, that's good to be learned & analyzed, to be later adapted to the more raw 'blues band' context, which IMHO could also be more 'authentic' that way than if someone learn it from the 'blues band bass player' (to be adapted/copied to his own -another- blues band), if you get what I mean. (sorry my english is not good enough LOL).

But I might be wrong, sorry.
 
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#7
Wouldn't it be so boring 'blues band' if the bass line constantly 'walking bass'? Perhaps that's why it's almost no one you found.

It certainly didn't stop the large majority of 50s era jazz bands from using quarter note lines on their recordings - see the collected works of Paul Chambers, Percy Heath, Milt Hinton, Sam Jones, Doug Watkins, Ray Brown, Ron Carter, etc. While none of them walked exclusively; you could put together box sets of each of them that consist solely of quarter note walking lines. Not sure why it would be OK for them, but boring in a blues context?
 
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#9
The thing about blues is that it is defined by a fairly limited idiomatic musical vocabulary. Blues purists that I've worked with maintain that for it to be "real" it must stay within that blues vernacular, meaning the traditional blues scale. For bassists, that usually limits us to the mixolydian mode (with chromatic allowances) for each dominant chord in a I - IV - V major blues progression and dorian mode (with some liberties) for each chord in a minor 12 bar blues progression. When you extend beyond that you get into jump blues and jazz blues territory which might not qualify as true blues in the traditional sense. I don't know of any good examples of walking bass lines that successfully bend the "rules" in traditional blues. You hear a lot of lines constructed from 1, 3, 5, 6, b7 for each chord in a 1/4 note walking line. This is why blues bass has become somewhat cliche. I don't mean that in a derogatory way; I'm not a blues authority by any means. I'm just offering my viewpoint based on my personal experience playing blues. I think of it as a musical dialect.
 
#13
Hahaha said:
The thing about blues is that it is defined by a fairly limited idiomatic musical vocabulary. Blues purists that I've worked with maintain that for it to be "real" it must stay within that blues vernacular, meaning the traditional blues scale. For bassists, that usually limits us to the mixolydian mode (with chromatic allowances) for each dominant chord in a I - IV - V major blues progression and dorian mode (with some liberties) for each chord in a minor 12 bar blues progression. When you extend beyond that you get into jump blues and jazz blues territory which might not qualify as true blues in the traditional sense. I don't know of any good examples of walking bass lines that successfully bend the "rules" in traditional blues. You hear a lot of lines constructed from 1, 3, 5, 6, b7 for each chord in a 1/4 note walking line. This is why blues bass has become somewhat cliche. I don't mean that in a derogatory way; I'm not a blues authority by any means. I'm just offering my viewpoint based on my personal experience playing blues. I think of it as a musical dialect.
Click to expand...

Your analysis is a good one.

Incidentally, I find the often-played root, octave, flat 7, five shuffle pattern on the I - IV - V to be tiresome unless the bassist is really grooving and mixing it up with passing notes, pedal notes etc. When I play blues I make a conscious effort to do this, probably to the chagrin of those singularly-focussed, blues bass-playing colleagues content to play in the more traditional, repetitive, pattern oriented style.
 
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#15
Harvey Brooks playing on Alberts's Shuffle is a good example of playing the I, IV,V with groove and inspiration.
Travis Carlton playing with Robben Ford is another great example of a monster groove playing the blues idiom.
 
#19
I like blues, and I like walking bass lines. But MAN is it hard to come up with them! I don't know about you, but I find walking bass lines are one of the hardest things to write. Don't know about you. Either way, I like walking, but it takes forever to come up with one. But it's got to be one of the most fun thing to do on a bass!
 
#20
The thing about walking, is its not something you "come up with". It's a style of playing, that is completely improvisational. You know the changes, and you start playing. You use passing tones, either diatonic or chromatic and you walk the bass to the next chord.

The goal in most instances is too extend the lines in a single direction for as long as you can, and then bring it back. The most interesting lines rarely hit the root on '1', but builds tension throughout the changes with note and rhythm choices, releasing it when you resolve to the root. You aren't avoiding the root, but even if you hit it on '2', the release is palpable and entertaining.
 
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