THE 70S IN BASS

You know what? Suzi has a point... but it’s not quite as simple as it seems. Looking back from 2020, all these decades later, you could argue that the first couple of years of the Seventies were essentially an extension of the Sixties, certainly in bass terms, and indeed from many other cultural angles too. Before funk and jazz fusion really started to make themselves felt, many high-charting bass-lines were heavily indebted to the classic bassists of the previous decade, an early example being Free’s 1970 single ‘All Right Now’, anchored by Andy Fraser’s sublime, James Jamerson-alike line. On that note, Jamerson himself remained active on sessions throughout the Seventies, with recordings alongside Gladys Knight & he Pips, Robert Palmer, Smokey Robinson, and Ben E. King making it clear that the master wasn’t about to hang up his P-Bass just yet.

Jamerson wasn’t the only Sixties stalwart playing his way into the new decade. The great Carol Kaye worked on soundtracks, and the occasional session with artists such as Barbra Streisand; Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn, who had created an