James Jamerson is without a doubt one of the great bass players of the Motown house. The popular narrative is that he was virtually unknown in his lifetime and died before he received the widespread attention and respect that he deserved. Then came Standing in the Shadows of Motown, what appears to have been a labor of love to document the undocumentable (these were session players after all, and who knows who played what when on which), and the movie of the same title, which seems to focus more generally on the Funk Brothers.
The story you find on YouTube about Jamerson is that Gaye went out into the bars of Detroit to find him drunk, pulled him back into the studio, and got him to put down the bass line to the track below laying on his back. You can see Jamerson sitting next to Gaye in some of the footage in the video below.
And in case you missed it, here’s an isolated version of that same bass line.
The most fantastic thing to me about Jamerson’s playing is the way that he can be the absolute heart and soul of a track one moment, playing the piece that you’ve known your entire life, and in the next moment he’s playing a riff that sounds like it could be a whole new song, some little gem that’s been sitting there behind the hit you’ve known. Check the Ain’t No Mountain bass line in the video below. For the first thirty seconds the bass is exactly where you would expect it to be, nicely mirroring the harmonies, pretty much what you would expect having heard this song a million times. Then for about fifteen seconds Jamerson just goes bonkers. I’d missed it behind Marvin and Tammi’s combined efforts at that point in the song, but it’s absolutely gorgeous.
Four tracks below for you to check out. Nothing new, but plug in your headphones and listen to the bass for a bit.
I Was Made to Love Her
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Bernadette
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Sunny
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Standing in the Shadows of Love
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