Col Mustard
Ambassador of Perseverance
It's a book by Jim Roberts... highly recommended.
https://books.google.com/books/about/How_the_Fender_Bass_Changed_the_World.html?id=1m2kRBQscfoC
I read it... and sometimes I go back and read favorite passages over.
When I was a kid in the fifties, I remember listening to Jazz musicians and I always loved
the way the bass player seemed to be right there every time the music turned around.
Even if I couldn't understand where the music was going to go next, the bass player always
seemed to... and to go there just slightly ahead of the beat. To me, it was like magic.
I didn't have the words to articulate this, but I noticed it anyway. I didn't listen much to the bass on
pop music of the time, because I couldn't hear it. I believe that the engineers mixed the recordings with the bass very compressed, so a kid like me (listening through the aging speakers of a 15 or 20 year old
radio my dad bought in a pawn shop) could not actually hear much of what the bass was doing in pop songs.
The engineers didn't want the bass to make the needle jump out of the grooves of the 45 RPM
recordings that pop music used. I don't think that Jazz or Classical music had that problem, because
they were recorded for "High Fidelity" (read that: expensive) phonograph equipment, and so the
bass was a more defined part of the mix. I didn't know any of this at the time. But if you asked
me to describe some Jazz music, I might have started by humming a walking bass line from
something cool. 'Da-doom doom doom doom/doom doom doom ba-dooby dom dom dom ba-dooby
dom dom dom ba-dooby..." etc etc. *grins
But about 1960 I began to hear something I had not heard before. I was 12, and the testosterone
was beginning to flow, and I became very interested in the sock hops we had in the school cafeteria
during the lunch hour. The pop music that was played there had a different sound to it, which I didn't
realize was the electric bass. I just knew it was exciting... not as exciting as watching the girls of my
age group dance. They mostly danced with each other, because many of us, including me, were too
dorky to be able to do anything but stand around trying to look cool. (it didn't work). Listen:
Very Sixties... I know. But there's the Electric bass in the mix. I didn't know what it was, but
I liked it. Elvis used a stand-up bass player, just a few years earlier. Here's the Ventures in 1961
pretending to play Walk Don't Run... but the electric bass is right there for all to see. Fifties music
was nothing like this. I hated most fifties music (and still do) but embraced this new thing
with the enthusiasm of a 13 year old. Pop music would never be the same old same old. Ever.
Also, just about that time, and in the Detroit Michigan area, we began to hear black music on the
same radio stations as white music like the above. Another one of those things I noticed but could not articulate. Black R & B music was developing a pop sound, to expand into this new market. And that sound was propelled by the electric bass. Detroit became a hotbed of R & B activity, and Motown records
grew as the market did. So my teen years were spent immersed in this pulse. Motown music still sounds
good to me, even though much of the other pop music of the day sounds dated and very uncool.
Here's "Rescue Me" from 1965... listen to the bass! I grew up with this in my blood...
https://books.google.com/books/about/How_the_Fender_Bass_Changed_the_World.html?id=1m2kRBQscfoC
I read it... and sometimes I go back and read favorite passages over.
When I was a kid in the fifties, I remember listening to Jazz musicians and I always loved
the way the bass player seemed to be right there every time the music turned around.
Even if I couldn't understand where the music was going to go next, the bass player always
seemed to... and to go there just slightly ahead of the beat. To me, it was like magic.
I didn't have the words to articulate this, but I noticed it anyway. I didn't listen much to the bass on
pop music of the time, because I couldn't hear it. I believe that the engineers mixed the recordings with the bass very compressed, so a kid like me (listening through the aging speakers of a 15 or 20 year old
radio my dad bought in a pawn shop) could not actually hear much of what the bass was doing in pop songs.
The engineers didn't want the bass to make the needle jump out of the grooves of the 45 RPM
recordings that pop music used. I don't think that Jazz or Classical music had that problem, because
they were recorded for "High Fidelity" (read that: expensive) phonograph equipment, and so the
bass was a more defined part of the mix. I didn't know any of this at the time. But if you asked
me to describe some Jazz music, I might have started by humming a walking bass line from
something cool. 'Da-doom doom doom doom/doom doom doom ba-dooby dom dom dom ba-dooby
dom dom dom ba-dooby..." etc etc. *grins
But about 1960 I began to hear something I had not heard before. I was 12, and the testosterone
was beginning to flow, and I became very interested in the sock hops we had in the school cafeteria
during the lunch hour. The pop music that was played there had a different sound to it, which I didn't
realize was the electric bass. I just knew it was exciting... not as exciting as watching the girls of my
age group dance. They mostly danced with each other, because many of us, including me, were too
dorky to be able to do anything but stand around trying to look cool. (it didn't work). Listen:
Very Sixties... I know. But there's the Electric bass in the mix. I didn't know what it was, but
I liked it. Elvis used a stand-up bass player, just a few years earlier. Here's the Ventures in 1961
pretending to play Walk Don't Run... but the electric bass is right there for all to see. Fifties music
was nothing like this. I hated most fifties music (and still do) but embraced this new thing
with the enthusiasm of a 13 year old. Pop music would never be the same old same old. Ever.
Also, just about that time, and in the Detroit Michigan area, we began to hear black music on the
same radio stations as white music like the above. Another one of those things I noticed but could not articulate. Black R & B music was developing a pop sound, to expand into this new market. And that sound was propelled by the electric bass. Detroit became a hotbed of R & B activity, and Motown records
grew as the market did. So my teen years were spent immersed in this pulse. Motown music still sounds
good to me, even though much of the other pop music of the day sounds dated and very uncool.
Here's "Rescue Me" from 1965... listen to the bass! I grew up with this in my blood...
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