Bass Musician Magazine - SPECIAL February 2015 NAMM Issue | Page 15
band since you were fourteen years old!
playing that attracted you?
And for it to be such an amazing band,
It was Jamerson... it was Duck Dunn... Bootsy,
that’s mind blowing.
because it was James Brown... it was the feel
We’ll we were pretty lucky.
more than anything. It was a feel-good kind
of thing, they were always there, and they were
Once the switch was made, how did you
doing what the bass was supposed to be doing.
go about learning to play bass?
It just felt good to me.
We use to have a guy that came in every
week and he taught us tunes. We were doing
Any other early influences?
stuff like the Stones and Paul Revere and the
Oh gosh, there were so many... Chuck Rainey,
Raiders. He would show us all our parts.
Willie Weeks, Jerry Jemmot; there were a lot of
That’s basically how I learned. His name was
cats, man. A lot of great players.
Terry Saunder. When he stopped teaching the
band, Mimi, (Emilio) he took over that role and
The players you’ve mentioned were all
guided everybody through the parts. He had
strong R & B players. Is that the kind of
the ear for it. He was able to pick the parts out
music you were listening to?
from the records; the rest of us weren’t really
Oh yeah, absolutely. When we started out it
in that space at that time. We didn’t pick up on
was the Stones and that kind of stuff, but once
it the way he did. It just gradually went from
we got into soul music it was all over then. We
there, and as time went on, obviously I knew a
started adding horns and that was it (Laughs).
little bit more about what I was doing (Laughs).
Do you listen to much music these day?
You’ve been quoted as listing James
If so, what do you gravitate towards?
Jamerson
as
I don’t really listen to that much music to be
influences. They are both excellent
honest. If I do, I pull it from the early days. It
players, but what was it about their
was the best music that there was, I’m sorry.
and
Bootsy
Collins