TIME FOR TRUTH

We like to think we’re a fairly rock’n’roll bunch here at Bass Player: After all, the bass is the coolest instrument on the planet, and it deserves to be played loud. That doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy a spot of academic rigor when the moment calls for it, though, and indeed, we were fascinated back in 2019 by an article called Reconstructing the History of Motown Session Musicians: The Carol Kaye/James Jamerson Controversy, published in the learned Journal of the Society for American Music, and available for your perusal online at www.cambridge.org.

This extensive analysis of a particular long-standing debate over who played what at certain Motown sessions in the Sixties was authored by bassist Brian F. Wright, an acclaimed academic who holds the post of Assistant Professor of Popular Music at the University of North Texas in Dallas. He’s also the recent recipient of the Charles ‘Father of Stu’ Hamm Fellowship from the Society for American Music.