Re: [Harp-L] What? No bass player?

[scott <checker758@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- In harp-l-archives@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Bob Maglinte" <bbqbob917@xxxx> wrote:
> 
> > Excuse the very weird question - but I am going to ask it anyhow.
> >
> > Have any of you veterans heard of a blues band - that tries to emulate
> > Chess Records sounding blues groove - ever heard of a band doing that
> > kind of sound without using a bass player?

> Hi,
> That's the way Little Walter toured. 
 
...and also the way he recorded some of his classics.  Listen to "Juke", "Can't Hold Out Much Longer", "Mean Old World", and "Sad Hours" - no bass player.  Little Walter never had a bass player in his regular band until the late '50s/early '60s, which was basically the tail end of his career.
 
Jimmie Lee Robinson, who was one of the two guitarists in LW's band from 1956 to 1959, told me that as long as Walter had a good drummer, he didn't need a bass - when the guy who is playing the "bottom guitar" is locked in perfectly with the drummer's bass drum, no one would ever notice an absence of bass.
 
I don't think Muddy Waters ever had a bass player in his band until the electric bass became common.  (Willie Dixon wasn't in Muddy's band, he was only there for the sessions, as he was with Little Walter.)
 
I was in a band in the late '80s and early '90s called The Ice Cream Men that played a weekly gig in Chicago; we emulated the two-guitars-no-bass classic Chicago blues sound from the 1950s, and never once played with a bass player.  We had lots and lots of Chicago blues old-timers come out and sit in with us, and they understood and seemed to appreciate the 'old school' approach, and didn't think it was unusual at all.  
 
>From talking to a lot of these guys, I got the distinct impression that 'back in the day', this type of line up was the rule rather than the exception.  Remember that until around 1955 or '56 when the electric bass started to become popular, having a bass meant having a "stand up bass", a large, cumbersome, and relatively expensive and delicate instrument that couldn't be heard very well over the already-popular electric guitars everyone was using.  So basses were a lot more popular and useful with classier and more upscale bands than with your basic Chicago blues band.  Of course once the bass was electrified and became just as portable (and loud) as the guitars, everything changed...
 
Scott

		
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