The Busiest Supportive Bass Lines

[Dr. Cheese]

Listening to Darling Dear last really
made appreciate what an absolute genius James Jamerson was. I don’t think anyone else can play that many notes without getting in the way of the vocals. That said, the fact that his bass was not mixed as high it would be in the Funk era helped him too. I also included some other great who managed to go busy without clutter too.

 

[Jazzdogg]

Pretty much anything Rocco played!

 

[bass12]

Placement in the mix makes a big difference - as does the overall arrangement. There's nothing wrong with a busy bass line if the context is right. There are times I wish a given bass line was busier. A musician friend of mine was saying that Prince was one of his top five bassists. I asked why and he said "because he always plays for the song". My response was that he writes the songs, so whatever he writes and then plays will be "for the song". I personally find 95% of Prince's bass lines uninspiring and "lazy". I'm all for space but to me many of his songs would have been more interesting with bass lines that were "busier"/more developed.

 

[31HZ]

 

[bucephylus]

 

[grubdumpling]

I like these kind of basslines, where there's a lot to do but there's a solid repeating pattern. We've been living without a guitar for a while so these are the kinds of covers I like, stuff that we can fill out with bass and keys.

Actually if anyone has some suggestions I am always looking for similar stuff to add to the list.

 

[DuluthDank]

Whenever this topic comes up, I always mention Bruce Thomas of Elvis Costello's band.

 

[Dr. Cheese]

Pretty much anything Rocco played!

For real!

 

[Dr. Cheese]

One of my all time favorite bass parts, I probably ran folks crazy playing this in my dorm room.

 

[winston]

Beck’s Paper Tiger with TB’s own Justin Meldal-Johnsen is completely OTT but still a supportive frame the song hangs on. Yes I know the inspiration (“Melody Nelson”) but this is on another level.

 

[EASonBass]

The Beatles. Something.

 

[songwriter21]

Rio (Duran Duran)

 

[ELG60]

 

[Smallmouth_Bass]

I find busy basslines that work well are more of a feature of the song than supportive. Just about anything from James Jamerson comes to mind. Much of Duran Duran and Paul McCartney's later Beatles work too.

 

[klyph]

Plenty of Jamerson lines answer to this description, but I think this is exhibit #1

 

[klyph]

This is one of my favorites. We don’t often talk about the aggressive nature of some of JJ’s lines, or the confidence required to deploy them. Listen to the intro here, and the reprise at the one minute mark. What bassist do you know who would play something that syncopated against nothing but fingersnaps under a vocal? On an unrehearsed master session? Kind of mind boggling. The artistic license explicitly granted by Berry Gordy (even in 1966) has much to do with it, but still…

 

[Bass Motifs]

 

[klyph]

Then there’s this, courtesy of Steve Swallow…

 

[Michedelic]

 

[Bassinthemudd]

For the sake of this discussion, how should "supportive" be defined? I feel like Jamerson always did more than support. His contribution to any song always seemed to contribute to the hook.