Motown Records

The Fender 1962 James Jamerson Precision Bass Guitar

This past week, Fender officially released the limited edition James Jamerson 1962 Precision Bass (https://www.fender.com/products/james-jamerson-1962-precision-bass). At a cost of $3,000.00 retail, it is definitely more than the standard Precision bass available. However, the reasoning behind issuing this tribute instrument seems totally worthwhile.

Every bassist in the rock, jazz, blues, and R&B genres today is in some way influenced by Jamerson. He is often considered the greatest bass player in modern pop music history. Born in South Carolina, he move with his family to Detroit at a young age. He learned to play upright bass while in high school, and turned down a college music scholarship in order to play in the jazz clubs around town.

In 1959, he began to get work at Berry Gordy’s Hitsville USA studio, the home of Motown Records. He became the main bass player for what became known as the Funk Brothers, a group of musicians that created the “Motown Sound” on hundreds of recordings in the 1960s and early 1970s. The list of his work is earth shaking: “My Girl” by the Temptations, “You Can’t Hurry Love” by the Supremes, “Dancing in the Streets” by Martha and the Vandellas, “Bernadette” by the Four Tops, “For Once in My Life” by Stevie Wonder, and “Going to a Go-Go” by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles just to name a few.

Because Gordy felt that the Funk Brothers were merely employees of Motown, the members never received any recognition with their work. Their names never appeared on any liner notes until 1971, when Marvin Gaye listed them on his What’s Going On album. While recording the title track, Gaye would not proceed until Jamerson was located to lay down the bass track. When found, Jamerson was highly intoxicated, and was unable to stand upright. He recorded the legendary bass lines while lying on his back.

When Motown Records moved to Los Angeles in 1972, Jamerson made the move as well, but found that LA studios had a different attitude than what he experienced in Detroit. They required exact reading of charts, and a more bright sound from the bass guitar using roundwound strings (Jamerson had always used flatwound strings, similar to what was used on upright basses). While he did appear on some disco hits of the era, he slowly lost access to studio jobs by the 1980s. In 1983, Jamerson died of cirrhosis due to complications from alchoholism.

Largely forgotten immediately after his death, a book in 1989 entitled Standing in the Shadows of Motown did an extensive biography on Jamerson, including interviews with many rock and jazz bassists. The 2002 documentary of the same name highlighted his work along with the other Funk Brothers. Today, the number of bassists that name Jamerson as an influence is endless: Paul McCartney, John Entwistle, John Paul Jones, Geddy Lee, Bootsy Collins, Flea, Stanley Clarke and Sting just to name a few. Jamerson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000, and the Funk Brothers received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2013.

Back to the bass guitar, this is a recreation of the 1962 Precision bass that Jamerson used during most of his career. It was his third Precision model (the previous two were stolen), and he used a Fender Bass V and a Hagstrom eight-string bass on occasion. This bass comes with a rosewood fretboard, a three-tone sunburst body, chrome covers for the pickup and bridge, and a finger rest (guitarists playing the bass in the early days often used the thumb for plucking the strings). It is strung with flatwound strings, which give off a much more hollow sound closer to an upright bass. Jamerson was known to never change his strings unless they broke, so they may have remained on the bass for years. He claimed that the dirty strings gave the sound its “funk.”

While this bass guitar may get the player closed to the “Motown Sound,” one needs to remember that the bass is only half of the sound. In the studio, Jamerson’s bass was plugged directly into the mixing board. Strangely, many of the guitars were as well, and the monitoring for all of these instruments was done through a large speaker, which some of it bled back into the drum and other microphones while recording. When he did use an amplifier, it was usually an Ampeg B-15 Portaflex tube amp/speaker combo (one of the absolute best bass amps ever made!), or a Kustom stack.

If I had $3,000 to spare, would I snag this bass? Absolutely! Not only due to the sound that the early Precision basses gave off, but to appreciate the work that Jamerson gave to modern pop music. I recommend anyone to watch the 2002 documentary on the Funk Brothers, and if in Detroit, to visit the Motown Museum to see the “Snake Pit,” the recording studio that so many hits from the 1960s were recorded at. Jamerson deserves so much more recognition in the music industry than what he has received, but this Precision bass helps.

Next weekend I will be at the Charlotte Bluegrass Festival, so the blog may be late.

Chew on it and comment.

John Mayall/Duke Fakir/Happy Traum RIP

Three important names in music passed away this past week, with two of them being big influences on my musical life.

First, let’s look at the passing of John Mayall. He was a student of the blues long before the British Invasion that gave us the Rolling Stones, the Animals, and the Yardbirds. He, along with Alexis Korner, brought Chicago-style blues to young Brits in the early 1960s. His proteges included Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor, Mick Fleetwood, and John McVie among many others. His 1966 album John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers, often called the Beano album as it featured Clapton reading the Beano comic book on the cover, is considered legendary. He had many chances to gain great success in the US if he would dilute his strict blues style, but he refused. He became a cult hero among blues purists, and his original material was off kilter, not writing about usual blues subjects such as drinking and infidelity, but instead choosing political and environmental themes. He was active until very recently, passing away at the age of 90.

Next, we look at Abdul “Duke: Fakir, tenor singer and last original member of the Four Tops. Motown was a big part of my growing up, and much of that came from the smooth vocals from the talented groups on the label. The Supremes, the Temptations, Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, and Martha & the Vandellas were all top notch, but my favorite of them all was the Four Tops. Lead singer Levi Stubbs was amazing to say the least, but the icing on the cake was the tight and timely harmonies provided by Lawrence Payton, Renaldo Benson, and Duke Fakir. Listen to classics such as “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch).” “Bernadette,” “Reach Out I’ll Be There,” and “It’s the Same Old Song.” These four guys were bridging doo-wop with R&B energy.

Then there was the look. The four members, especially Fakir, had absolute class and style in the way that they presented themselves. In the beginning, they wore tailored, matching suits that gave them a gentlemanly look. As the 60s progressed on into the 1970s, they began to make individual fashion statements. Even after leaving Motown, they still had hits with “Ain’t No Woman (Like the One I’ve Got)” on ABC and “When She Was My Girl” on Casablanca. One has to remember that these four performed together from 1953 to 1997, the longest tenure for any band with original members.

Fakir never left Detroit long-term, He owned much property in the city, and ran a successful restaurant on the Detroit River. He passed away on July 22 of heart failure at the age of 88.

My other big influence that we lost this past week as acoustic guitarist Harry Peter “Happy” Traum. Born in 1938 in the Bronx, he was part of the Washington Square/Greenwich Village scene during the early 1960s, where he would become friends with a young Bob Dylan. Along with Dylan, Pete Seeger, and the Freedom Singers, they recorded Broadside Ballads Volume 1 for Folkways Records. He actually cut the first version of Dylan’s “Blowing in the Wind.”

However, Traum is best known by many, including my introduction to him, for his work in creating guitar instructional books, tapes, and videos through his Homespun Music company. As a guitar teacher in New York City, he first wrote the book Fingerpicking Styles for Guitar in 1965. He was soon making tapes for his students based on transcriptions in the book. Due to the popularity, he formed Homespun with his wife and began advertising in various music magazines. Soon he was releasing instructional tapes from fiddler Kenny Kosek and banjo whiz Bill Keith.

By 1983, Homespun was releasing VCR lessons, which was eventually followed by DVD and online downloads. In 1995, Hal Leonard Corporation took over the massive distribution job. Other artists that Traum recorded for lessons included Chet Atkins, Norman Blake, Rick Danko, Donald Fagen, Jerry Douglas, John Hartford, Bill Monroe, Sam Bush, Doc Watson, even musical comedians Steve Martin and Steve Allen. Each video was produced by Traum, starting off in his living room and eventually in a small studio. Many of these videos featured Traum interviewing the presenters, offering insightful questions that would pique the artist’s curiosity and make the student truly interested in the information beyond fingering and picking technique.

While Homespun was Traum’s main passion, he still continued to record his own material, releasing his final recording, “Just for the Love of It,” in 2015 and appearing on Dylan’s Another Self Portrait a year earlier. He passed away on July 17 at the age of 86.

All will be missed. Chew on it and comment.