The Most Important Songs for Bassists to Learn

You see them all the time: The Top Ten Thousand Love Songs of All Time. The Top 100 Hits of the Last Three Hours. Boxcar Willie’s Top 500 Hits Box(car) Set. The Top One Hundred Top Songs for Bassists to Learn.

In fact, this column is supposed to be about that last list. That’s why you’re reading it – because you want the names of one hundred songs to learn to help make you the world’s coolest bass player – or at least one who can get in a band. Continue reading

I Am A Bassist

Put it this way: The drums may keep the beat, but it’s the Bass that makes you move your feet. ~Dominique Baldwin (Lane’s daughter)

Lane with his main bass – a Spector NS-6XL, custom made for him over fifteen years ago.

I am a Bassist.

When I first picked up a bass, it was love at first thump. That poor bass – a copy of a rip-off of a re-make of a Fender, played through an Ampeg guitar amp – was to me the ultimate instrument.

It seems that, even then at the very beginning of it all, I knew instinctively that while lead singers and lead guitarists might be the center of attention, I would be the center of the music. I would be the thread sewing all the pieces together into the fabric of the music. I would put one arm around my drummer and the other around the rhythm guitarist (or the occasional keyboardist) and guide my section mates through the coolest groove we could groove, coordinating each’s work with the other’s as well as my own.

I would enhance the vocalist’s melody, provide the foundation for the chords, and be the keystone of the rhythm. All at once. All the time. Continue reading

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