Danny from Australia pushed the "Donate-Button" again and came up with a quite challenging request. Rick Dankos bassline for "The Weight" from The Band as done in the movie "The Last Waltz" (1978). Rick is really hard to hear in the mix, whilst playing a very busy bassline in his rather unorthodox style using a pick. I had to listen to each bar over and over again to detect the right notes. I don't think that everything I wrote down is 100% accurate, but I'm sure I'm very close!
So thank you Danny for the donation and the challenge :-)
I also have to thank Davide from Newington, Australia and Ian from Hampshire, UK, who also donated to my blog.
Become a patron for only $2 per month and get access to the pdf transcription of this song, my complete YouTube transcription archive and much more. Take a look, it's worth it:
Seems like the year 2016 will face the extinction of a whole generation of pop- and rock musicians, because another loss had to be bemoaned last week. On 4th of February Maurice White died at his home in Los Angeles at the age of 74.
Maurice, the older brother of bassplayer Verdine White started playing at the age of 14 in Memphis with his childhood friend Booker T. Jones.
After moving to Chicago by the mid-1960's he was working as a studio drummer for Chess Records recording with artists such as Etta James, Sonny Stitt, Muddy Waters or Buddy Guy.
In 1970 he then moved from Chicago to L.A. and founded the nine-piece band Earth, Wind & Fire. He wrote and arranged most of the songs, sang and played the percussions. 1995 he announced to quit touring with the band, because he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.
R.I.P. Maurice White
My transcription is made from the original studio recording, which unfortunately isn't available on youtube.
This weeks bassline was requested by Danny from Sydney, Australia. He donates regularly to my blog and has already picked a few very interesting tunes for transcription. Thanks to Danny!
"Sorrow" is an original song by the The McCoys from 1965, which became a big hit in the UK in a cover version by The Merseys in 1966. Bowie picked up this song again in 1973 for his covers album "Pin ups".
When I transcribe a cover version of a song, I'm always curious about finding out how the orginal song sounds and therefore I also transcribed the original bassline from The McCoys version:
And finally , here's the version by The Mersey's, which I haven't transcribe yet:
Can you remember when you were first discovering Rock music as a kid?
In my case it was around the years 1976/77 when I was 11 years old. I had no older siblings and so I was introduced to rock music by an older cousin of mine.
And can you remember when you bought your first records from your pocket money and then playing them over and over again, driving your parents nuts?
One of these albums I bought in that time was "On Stage" by Rainbow. Oh I really loved that album and listened to it several times a day, looking at the pictures on the cover, reading through everything written on the backside and dreaming of being a rockstar myself.
And this is were I first read the name Jimmy Bain, as the personnel on that record was:
Ronnie James Dio - Vocals
Ritchie Blackmore - Guitar
Cozy Powell - Drums
Tony Carey - Keyboards
Jimmy Bain - Bass
And all those childhood memories came back to me, when I read about Jimmy Bain's dead two days ago.
So I decided to transcribe one of his basslines, not with Rainbow - he only happened to be on two albums with them ("On Stage" and "Rising"), but rather with Ronnie James Dio with whom he recorded 7 albums.
Oh no, not again.
That's what I thought this morning when I heard the news of Glenn Freys passing. Another music legend I grew up with has gone.
Just recently I started the Eagles transcriptions project, where I transcribe a whole Eagles tribute show for one of my students, who's planning a big charity event in summer this year.
Here's a song Glenn co-wrote with Don Henley and Joe Walsh that fit's perfectly to this sad moment: Thinking about what's important in life.
In a 1981 interview with the BBC, Frey explained: "Life In The Fast
Lane' kind of expressed the stereotyped LA 'run around in your Porsche'
24 hour boogie mode that unfortunately is too true for a lot of people.
It wasn't really a statement about the guys in the band, or about
anybody in particular – just it's kind of disturbing to see the extremes
that the bourgeois jet set will involve themselves in. For instance,
disco almost turned into a lifestyle, and it's such a non-meaningful
thing on which to base one's life."
And Joe Walsh added: "Yeah, that's probably true, and
I think it was healthy, though, that we realized that running around
and parties and fast cars are really not the answer – it's kind of a
shallow way to approach why we're on this planet, and it probably came
as a band consciousness."
Here's the isolated bassline to study the transcription:
Yesterday morning, when I turned on my computer, equipped with a big mug of coffee, scrolling through facebook & co. to see what's happening in the world, I was really struck hard by the news of David Bowie's unexpected death. Battling cancer in secret for about 18 months he put all his remaining force and energy in recording his final record and last week he released a video of himself in a hospital bed. Somehow scary but it clearly shows us how a real artist deal's with life and destiny. Bowie's long-time friend and producer Tony Visconti put it in a nutshell as he wrote on Facebook: "His death was no different from his life - a work of art." A real icon has passed away!
My personal David Bowie story began in 1980 when I was 15 years old and bought the single "Ashes To Ashes" in a local music store. I was immediately fascinated by the mysterious and odd sound and atmosphere of the song and from this moment on I was infected with the Bowie virus.
For the "Weekly Basslines" I chose the only two songs of Bowie's great heritage which I ever played live with one of my bands. I always wanted to do more, but unfortunately my band companions weren't as passionate about Bowie as I was. Maybe they will be less reluctant now!
R.I.P. David Bowie
Recently I found a cool video from BBC, where producer Toni Visconti is using the original master tapes from sessions at Hansa Studios in Berlin to break down "Heroes" track-by-track. Take a look, very interesting. Here's the link:
nach der kleinen Weihnachts- und Neujahrspause geht es im neuen Jahr mit großer Motivation weiter mit den Videobasslessons.
Diesmal habe ich mir das Thema "Notenlesen lernen" vorgenommen. In dem fast 50 min. langen Video erkläre ich Euch meine ultimative Methode, mit der alle meine Schüler (und in 25 Jahren Unterrichtspraxis kommen da schon eine ganze Menge zusammen) das Notenlesen gelernt haben und ich weiß: Ihr könnt es auch! :-)
Ich hoffe diese Lektion gibt Euch den Antrieb im Jahr 2016 endlich das Notenlesen zu lernen. Ich werde Euch mit weiteren Übungen zu diesem Thema dabei unterstützen. Ihr könnt das Video, die Arbeitsblätter und die einzelnen Übungsvideos als Download bekommen. Schickt mir dazu einfach eine Mail an tom@four-strings.de und ich sende Euch den entsprechenden Dropbox-Link zu.
Dies ist die letzte kostenlose Videobasslesson. Ab der nächsten Woche könnt ihr die weiteren Videobasslessons bei mir gegen eine kleine Gebühr käuflich erwerben. Nach Bezahlung (Payal) erhaltet ihr von mir den jeweiligen Dropbox-Link zugesendet, um Euch die Inhalte downzuloaden.
Ich wünsche Euch viel sBASS beim Üben und freue mich auf Eure Fragen, Anregungen, Kritik etc.
