Well known basslines that are deceptively a bit of a barsteward to nail

[scalpy]

Anything by the Stones. That band’s groove is very peculiar.

[kevin_lindsay]

As for "What Is Hip?", you can see from watching Allesandra, the girl in the clip above playing it, that you have to push the accent when going through the bassline. It's not just a case of playing a straight 16th notes.  You have to push and pull the feel of the line to produce the accents when underlining the horn stabs for example,. You also have to "pulse" the 16th notes to get a groove going, rather than simply plodding along.

Pino Palladino is a HUGE fan of Francis "Rocco" Prestia from Tower Of Power. So much so in fact, that he had Rocco sign his famous Musicman Stingray. The only person to do so. (The pic below is one Pino's wife took of the bass just a few months ago). And..... Pino's son is named after Rocco as well!!!!

 

Edited March 8, 2018 by kevin_lindsay

[plangentmusic]

We Are Family --  a standard for every working wedding band and I don't think I've ever heard anyone play it right.

[casapete]

9 hours ago, scalpy said:

Anything by the Stones. That band’s groove is very peculiar.

Peculiar as in 'strange' or as in 'special' ?!!

Whatever, their stuff can be hard to nail as per the original recordings. 

[Woodinblack]

3 hours ago, plangentmusic said:

We Are Family --  a standard for every working wedding band and I don't think I've ever heard anyone play it right.

Now I look at videos of people on the net playing that, it is on the list of things I should play. Even though I will probably never play it live

 

[Dood]

When Doves Cry - Prince

 

 

 

* Yeah I know, its that time again 

[Woodinblack]

7 minutes ago, dood said:

When Doves Cry - Prince

Oh I don't know, I always found that one easy. Certainly no harder than the verse of all right now

 

[Dood]

37 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

Oh I don't know, I always found that one easy. Certainly no harder than the verse of all right now

 

Brilliant!!!! 

[Twigman]

Forget Me Nots

 

It sounds lazy and is really quite simple (with fingers) but every note is slapped - that makes it bloody tricky...for me

[scalpy]

1 hour ago, casapete said:

Peculiar as in 'strange' or as in 'special' ?!!

Whatever, their stuff can be hard to nail as per the original recordings. 

Peculiar as it’s very hard to analyse exactly what’s going on and how it works. Unlike a good train beat or the groove to Night Train where it’s got a very calculable degree of swing (still very hard to pull mind) the Stones are so scruffy and skew whiff it shouldn’t work, but yet it does. Not everybodies cup of tea I know but it’s certainly special to me. 

[PawelG]

What about Chic - Everybody Dance? Picking without the pick.

[Chris2112]

'Joe Frazier' by Jeff Berlin (either the Bruford or solo record versions). The head is just insane. It sounds as though it would be easy to break down into sections but after the turn around going up to the high G it gets very tricky. I still haven't nailed it. 

[bazzbass]

21 hours ago, scalpy said:

Anything by the Stones. That band’s groove is very peculiar.

well, Charlie takes his cues from Keith, Bill is too busy checking out pre teen girls. He hardly recorded with them, Keef and Ron played all the good basslines.

 

So, drummer takes cues from a zonked out Keef who tunes his guitar's 5 strings to open G so he can't stuff up anything, bass player is perving on the girlies,, no wonder they are the sloppiest band ever. That is their 'groove' lol

[Conan]

Some interesting definitions of "well-known" in this thread! Well-known by bassists, or well-known in  a wider sense?

And I'm not sure I've ever met anyone who hears "What is Hip?" and thinks "well, that one is pretty straightforward and shouldn't give me too many problems - I'll just busk it". 

[chris_b]

Hands up. Who, around here, has been asked to play What Is Hip on a gig?

If I was asked to play Forget Me Nots I'd just picture Bernard Edwards playing it and do it that way.

[Muzz]

Nope; it's a stonking bass line, but in practical gigging terms, as they say... "No call for it, Squire..."

And there's bugger all deceptively-hard-to-nail about it... 

[Al Krow]

Higher and higher - Jackie Wilson. It's just one inebriated James Lee Jamerson bass riff. But needs to be played on repeat and perfectly in time for the duration of the song. Deceptively tricky.

 

[BigRedX]

On 3/6/2018 at 12:29, markdavid said:

Joe Jackson Steppin Out  - I thought I had it nailed but then on closer listening realised hes  playing octaves , absolute b*!ch to play at the original speed, one day i'll nail it

 

On 3/8/2018 at 05:23, bazzbass said:

killer bassline, very hard to play at correct tempo for me too .

Surely it's all sequenced synth - probably done on something simple like a Roland Bassline?

Edited March 9, 2018 by BigRedX

[BigRedX]

On 3/8/2018 at 07:20, scalpy said:

Anything by the Stones. That band’s groove is very peculiar.

Not helped by the fact that on any of the songs with piano, the keys left hand is doing the standard solid bass line, leaving the bass guitar the noodle about in the space between the keyboards and guitars. Unless your band is replicating the keyboard parts exactly, I've found the best way to get the song sounding even close to the recording is start by emulating the keys left hand and then add as many of the bass guitar licks as you can while still keeping it solid at the bottom end.

[chris_b]

With Higher and Higher, or any repetitive line, you have to focus on playing the song.

Forget about the bass line and focus on the groove. It becomes very easy after that.

[casapete]

1 hour ago, chris_b said:

With Higher and Higher, or any repetitive line, you have to focus on playing the song.

Don't forget for complete authenticity to get the guitar player to just be ever so slightly out of tune too.....

[Woodinblack]

1 hour ago, casapete said:

Don't forget for complete authenticity to get the guitar player to just be ever so slightly out of tune too.....

Never had a problem getting that to happen!

[MrDaveTheBass]

Ed Friedland has written an interesting article on Mustang Sally - a line that he assumes that everyone always plays wrong:

https://www.bassplayer.com/lessons/rb-gold-mistake-sally

(I appreciate that Mustang Sally could be considered as just plain wrong, however you play it)

 

[naxos10]

Interesting reading that link that MrDave.

[Delberthot]

I find anything simple and repetititve difficult as I get bored and zone out and start thinking about having coffee and wedding cake at the break