Ditto. I really like to listen to him talking about music. And “music as a language” is something I heard him say more than once.
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My long-suffering wife is currently re-arranging our bedroom and putting all my bass books together on one shelf (I approve). In the process, I re-discovered this book that was given to me as a present a few years back. I doubt there is a finer book covering the pictorial history of vintage basses out there. It’s expensive - currently forty-eight English pounds on Amazon - but well worth it. You can save £10 and buy a Kindle edition but why would you? You don’t have to pay £38 to look at pictures of basses on an iPad. The glory of this is it’s a big physical coffee-table celebration that you can just dip into or get lost in for hours on end. Highly recommended but get someone else to buy it for you!!
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i’ve got this one on my short list, thanx
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Got this one on my list.
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Been on my to buy list since it came out!
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Anyone who watched the recent Talking Bass podcast on Guy Pratt will need no introduction to him but if you didn’t and you don’t know who I’m talking about he is a hugely skilled British session musician who has played bass for Michael Jackson, Madonna, Roxy Music but perhaps most famously took over most of the bass duties at Pink Floyd after Roger Water’s left. The guy also happens to be a very funny stand-up comedian and British members of a certain age will know who I’m talking about when I say he is the son of Randall from Randall & Hopkirk (deceased). He had a book out years ago which I’ve just managed to pick up a copy of. Amazingly it’s still in print and available on Amazon. I can’t recommend it enough, you’ll be laughing out loud at every page.
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Hey all, so I read both of these and can say that you are better off reading The Bass Book and skipping the “How The Fender Bass Changed The World”. I read the latter in two days, very brief, not well written.
“The Bass Book” has a lot more detail, more pics, and a pretty cool model guide of pretty much every bass every made (less cheap knockoffs, etc) known.
Also got Getty Lee’s book, next on the reading list.
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The latest book that has just been thrown against my front door by the nice people at Amazon is Ryan Madora’s Bass Players to Know. If Ryan Madora is one of the ones you don’t know she is an accomplished Nashville bassist and educator who regularly writes for No Treble, has toured with Robben Ford, and is one of Truefire’s online Bass tutors. The premise of this book is interesting - It is not intended to be yet another Hagiographic list of the greats but a study of some of the lesser-known bassists who may have slipped under the radar even by many of us. So no mention of Jaco, Marcus, Victor, Stanley Clarke, Pino, or Anthony Jackson but 35 bassists who, for whatever reason have achieved something on bass that we should sit up and take note of. The entry for each bassist is split into three sections - who he is, how his style is defined and where you can hear the best examples of his work (note, for ease, I am referring to musicians in the masculine but Tina Weymouth and Gail Ann Dorsey also make the list). This isn’t an expensive book (cover price $16.99, on UK Amazon for £13.83) but it seems inconceivable that it won’t open up your library of influences, so small change for what it offers.
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This thread is the Mutts Nuts!
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Looking for this one at a normal price. Hoping I can find one tucked away in a used BS around here. It’s $174 on Amazon!!! And out of print.
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I’m sure you’re aware of “Soul Fingers” - it has 57 Duck transcriptions…
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I’m sure that I heard the name in a Duck video. I went down the rabbit hole of his work recently after seeing Blues Brothers again.
I’m also sure that the two lists of songs most likely completely overlap. Multiple books like that usually do. But the thrill of the hunt for an out of print book is strong! And gets me into used book stores! It’s been soooo long!
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I figured it was something along those lines - good luck!