Who are some masters of the bass blues shuffle?

RIP Dusty Hill

 

The Chess catalogue is classical music .

 

Tommy Shannon

Bass Players To Know: Tommy Shannon

 

Duck Dunn's playing on, of all things, the Blues Brothers' Briefcase Full of Blues, is basically a clinic in playing classic shuffle blues.

And I second Shannon's playing, and some of it is really unique (the waaaaay behind the beat approaches to Pride and Joy and Look at Little Sister come to mind).

Any of BB King's bass players sounded great on his shuffles.

 

Gerry McAvoy, who played with Taste and Rory Gallagher.

 

The shuffle isn't really something a bass player does; it's something a rhythm section does.

That said, there are two basic ways for a bassist to play the blues swing shuffle:

1. Play the one, one-and, two, two-and, etc. (what I would call "double shuffle"); or,
2. Just play quarter notes.

If the double shuffle can't be played cleanly, the simpler second method will sound better, as long as a rhythm guitar or keyboard is there to handle the "ands." Here's B.B. King's "Everyday I Have the Blues" live. It's too fast for the bass to play the double shuffle, but the drummer hits the "ands" with the snare drum.

Calvin "Fuzz" Jones, who played with Muddy Waters in the 1970s, was not the greatest technical player, but his feel was great.

Listen to B.B. King's "Just a Little Love" from the "Live and Well" album. Val Patillo on bass.

 

Listen to the various bassists on Keb Mo records, starting with Reggie McBride. Then checkout Hutch Hutchence playing with Bonnie Raitt.

 

This^^^^^^^

 

There's that name again, need to check him out more....

 

Roscoe Beck, And Willie Weeks!

 

Lee Rocker on some of the Stray Cats bluesier numbers.

 

Tommy Shannon.

 

Keith Ferguson & Dusty Hill.

 

" Berry Oakley, with the Allman Brothers Band . " G.J.

 

Larry the Mole Taylor.

 

Can’t go wrong with Tommy Shannon. Played with Johnny Winter as well as SRV.

 

Duck Dunn and Tommy Shannon are masters of the shuffle.

 

Johnny B Gayden played for years with Albert Collins. Together with Casey Jones on drums they were a killin' rhythm section.

 

Boz Burrell. Chris Campbell. Ron Blair