LITMIR.BIZ

      Now, for a moment, let us take what might seem a strange turn. Four of the groups mentioned in the last few pages feature excellent bass guitarists, musicians who opened new possibilities for what many people still think of, even now, as an instrument that should remain in the background. I’ve already mentioned John Entwistle, whose weaving, slithery lines started a revolution in bass playing. Jack Bruce and John Paul Jones, though more bottom-heavy in their approaches, all the same broadened the role of the instrument.

      Then there is the great overlooked one: Paul McCartney. Of course McCartney has never lacked for attention as a member of the Beatles and as a singer and songwriter (nor can we say that he hasn’t been adequately compensated in the financial department!). But one thing that is easy to forget about the Beatles—and our present visual-media-saturated society (that is, with movies and television as the main carriers of the society of the spectacle) has made it no less easy—is that, at the end of the day, they were first and foremost a band, a group of people who played musical instruments and sang songs. Given that the bass guitar is often overlooked anyway, and that many people couldn’t even tell you who is playing the bass in the Beatles, perhaps it is to be expected that Paul McCartney’s contribution on the instrument hasn’t received its complete due. Listen to a song such as “Rain,” which owes everything to the subtlety and melodicism of the bass-guitar part. (This song was released in 1966 as the B-side of a single, for which the A-side was “Paperback Writer”—in between the release of Rubber Soul and that of Revolver—all of which says a great deal about the enormous flow of creativity working in the world at that time.) In his very good book, The Beatles, Allan Kozinn writes,

      McCartney’s bass, placed in front of the mix, is an ingenious counterpoint that takes him all over the fretboard. Yet even when it does comparatively little, it can be the most interesting element of the performance. At the chorus, for example, while Lennon and McCartney harmonize in fourths on a melody with a slightly Middle Eastern tinge, McCartney first points up the song’s droning character by hammering on a high G (approached with a quick slide from the F natural just below it), playing it steadily on the beat for twenty successive beats. The next time the chorus comes around, though, he plays something entirely different, a slightly syncopated descending three-note pattern that almost seems to evoke the falling rain. (p. 143)

      McCartney’s bass lines are subtle, thoughtful, and virtuosic; from Rubber Soul forward, every Beatles album and almost every single provides an excellent school for bass-guitar playing, with Abbey Road demonstrating a very mature style.

      Again there is a Beach Boys connection. Even more ignored as a bass guitarist than McCartney is Brian Wilson. His lines are not only melodic and integral to the compositions, they are also the product of some interesting studio technology—courtesy of Phil Spector (later infamous for his overproduction of the Beatles’ Let It Be). Spector would sometimes record as many as eight different versions of a song’s bass line, using different instruments and settings on the mixing board, and then piece together the final bass part from this conglomeration. Bass players used to go nuts trying to imitate what came out on the record!

      And all of this also goes back to the Motown connection, which had such a great impact on English rock groups, both before and after the appearance of the Beatles. The bass lines of James Jamerson, Carol Kaye, and others had a melodic drive that simply took the music to a new place. And this is one part of the point I am aiming toward here: the expanded role of the bass guitar brought about a transformation in the music.

      As a musician, my own main instrument is the bass guitar, so the reader might suspect that I am giving special attention to a personal interest of mine. Perhaps. However, there is still an interesting point to be made here, or perhaps a few connected points. First, all of the bass players I mentioned are well known and highly regarded, and none of them does what bass players are stereotypically thought or expected to do. Second, this instrument, which is supposed to be at the back or at the bottom of the music, played a leading role in the transformation of the music I have been discussing. In other words, “Rain,” for instance, is the song that it is because of what is going on with the bass guitar. Put another way, in all of the cases I mentioned, from Motown to the Beatles to The Who, the innovations in the music can be seen in microcosm in the innovations of the bass lines. Third, the greater role for the bass in this music is symbolic of the way that, in the development of the underground and visionary trends that emerged in the late sixties, groups took a more “symphonic” approach to musical arrangement. In other words, the part for each instrument was carefully crafted as a contribution to a larger whole, and compositions emphasized the possibilities of diverse timbres. Instruments that had been “last” became, if not “first,” then at least equal players in the band. And the contrapuntal contributions of McCartney and Entwistle, especially, encouraged a new level of synergy. This synergy flowered in the playing of Chris Squire, John Wetton, Glenn Cornick, Hugh Hopper, and the other major bass guitarists of progressive rock—and the music of their bands was qualitatively enriched because of this.