Funk - The "I'm In Love With That Song" Podcast - Music Commentary, Song Analysis & Rock History

Welcome to the 200th episode of the “I’m In Love With That Song” Podcast. To mark the occasion, we’re celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Fender Precision Bass: the bass guitar that would revolutionize the role of the bass in all forms of popular music– Rock, Jazz, R&B, Country and beyond.

On this episode, I’m joined by Joe Branton (host of the “Guitar Nerds” podcast) to delve into the rich history of the electric bass, particularly the Fender Precision, which would have a profound impact on all the music we love.

Join us for this special milestone episode as we celebrate the legacy of the electric bass guitar and the vibrant community of bass players who continue to push the boundaries of music. Whether you’re a seasoned musician or a casual listener, this episode offers insights and stories that will resonate with anyone who appreciates the art of music.

WATCH THE VIDEO EPISODE HERE:

TRANSCRIPT:

Brad Page: Welcome once again to the I’m in Love with That Song podcast. I’m your host, Brad Page. We’re here on the Pantheon Podcast Network to bring you the 200th episode of this show. That’s right, this is our 200th edition of the I’m in Love with That Song podcast. So, of course, I thought we should do something a little different, something a little special for this auspicious occasion.

2026 also happens to be the 75th anniversary of the Fender Precision Bass guitar. That’s the instrument that would revolutionize the performance and the role of the bass in popular music. So, I thought we could celebrate our 200th episode with a salute to the bass guitar.

And if we’re going to feature the bass guitar, then we should have an expert join us on the show. And I can think of no one better to talk bass with than the marvelous Mr. Joe Branton. Joe is the bass player for the band Polymath, a fascinating prog-rock band from the UK, and he’s also the host of the Guitar Nerds podcast—an absolutely fantastic podcast that I am a huge fan of. Joe is well-versed in the history of the Fender Precision Bass and bass guitar in general, so he was the perfect guest for this show.

And to make this 200th episode even more special, I’m doing a video version of this show. It’s the first time ever. I will admit, Joe and I do get a little more geeky than I usually do on this podcast, but if you watch the video, you can see pictures and examples of what we’re talking about. So, anyone can follow along with this conversation; you don’t need to be a musician.

So, turn up the bottom end, and let’s rediscover the history of the bass guitar.

Brad Page: All right, Joe Branton, thank you so much for joining me here on the I’m in Love with That Song podcast to talk about the history of the Fender Precision Bass and electric bass in general.

Joe Branton: Well, thank you very much for having me, Brad. It’s an honor to be on your podcast, on the 200th episode, no less.

Brad Page: Yeah, well, thanks for coming on. So, the electric bass kind of had a lot of false starts. It really—the whole reason for its existence, really back in the day, was volume, right? Because it was an instrument that was very difficult to hear over drums and horns and all that stuff on the classic big band stage. Prior to that, we had what we called the double bass, right? Which most people would be familiar with. That’s the stand-up bass, an acoustic bass.

Joe Branton: Upright bass, yeah.

Brad Page: Right, upright bass. That was developed around the 1500s, I think. And it wasn’t until the 50s that we had a successful electric bass. But to get us there, Gibson had experimented with an electric upright bass in the 1920s. 1930s, Rickenbacker sold electric basses. There were a couple of other companies, but they just—they were not successful.

Joe Branton: Did you ever see the “Foot Bass”?

Brad Page: The Foot Bass? No, tell me about the Foot Bass.

Joe Branton: Imagine the body of an upright bass—so just that oversized cello, upright bass—sitting upright. Attached to it, maybe 10 or 15 foot pedals, all with strings attached to it. The idea was—it was invented in, I think, the late 40s, early 50s by a fellow who was in a one-man band. And the idea was to bring some of that, like a halfway house. I just remember that being at the time… and I know that’s not the electric bass, but those early 50s… they hadn’t decided yet how bands were going to work out, and that’s why it’s so amazing what ended up happening with the electric bass.

Brad Page: Right. And just all of this stuff—guitars and amplifiers—this was really the kind of the “Wild West” in terms of innovation and discovery and a lot of crazy inventions and a lot of failures to get us to the successes that we’re all super familiar with now.

One of the ones that fascinated me was a guy named Everett Hull, who invented a microphone that you would mount inside the stand-up bass on the peg. You know, you have the peg that sticks out of the bottom…

Joe Branton: Yeah, yeah.

Brad Page: …and that extends inside the instrument. And he created a microphone that would mount on that. And that was called the “Ampeg.” And that’s where we get the name of a brand that still exists today, Ampeg. But that’s how it literally started—with an “amp on a peg.”

Joe Branton: Oh, I love that story. I did not know that! That’s fantastic. That makes so much more sense now, and I love it.

Brad Page: Yeah, it’s great!

But none of these things were particularly successful until Fender—Leo Fender—comes out with the bass that he calls the Fender Precision in, I believe, October of 1951. Does that sound right?

Joe Branton: That’s right.

Brad Page: Let’s talk about why they called it the “Precision” in the first place.

Joe Branton: Well, it’s the first time that a bass had been fretted. Bass was not a fretted instrument prior to Leo Fender in 1951. I think it’s amazing. The electric guitar is something other people were really messing with; it kind of already existed by the time Leo Fender’s doing the Telecaster or the Broadcaster. All of those things are already there. He just made a really cool one, and then a load of really cool ones for various companies. But for bass, he actually invented a new type of instrument that changed how music was recorded. Bass was not fretted until October of 1951.

Brad Page: Yeah, that’s so important. A.) the fact that it’s the first fretted bass, and B.) the fact that it’s a bass that you played like a guitar. Because a lot of those earlier inventions that we just kind of talked through, those were primarily based on the stand-up model versus a bass that you would play like a guitar. And that was pretty revolutionary and fairly controversial at the time, too, because there were a lot of detractors who felt that it wasn’t, quote-unquote, a “real” bass because you didn’t play it standing up and it had frets and all of those things. So there was initial resistance to that.

Joe Branton: Yeah, it was an established instrument. Upright bass was established. That’s what the bass players did. So people who were trained upright bass players didn’t want to play electric bass. It didn’t work out so well; you only play with three fingers on an upright, so moving to a guitar style was tricky. And other companies didn’t buy into it. You mentioned Ampeg—Ampeg were still making upright basses until the early 70s. And you think of Ampeg… they were making basses that could be used as both. 1953, two years after Fender released the Precision Bass, Gibson is still there going, “I don’t think this is going to work,” and they released the EB-1, one of my favorite basses. The EB-1, a solid-body violin bass—looks like a Hofner bass, dear listener, but it’s actually solid. It can be played in this quirky modern way like a guitar, or it comes with a telescopic tailpiece so you can play it like an upright, meaning you get the precision of the frets, which they liked the idea of, but they’re like, “But bass players, you don’t want to relearn. Why not play upright?”

Brad Page: Right, exactly. So it was a really innovative move for Fender to come out with the Precision in 1951, and it took a little while to catch on. The original Fender Precision looked a little different than the one people may be familiar with today. It was actually based on the Telecaster design, but it was a double-cut, ash body, 20-fret maple neck, single-coil pickup, a 34-inch scale length—which was something that I understand took some development. I believe they tried 30, 32, 36-inch before they settled on the 34-inch. And if I remember correctly, it retailed for around $199 US dollars, which was still a lot of money back then. I think that equates to about $1,800 in today’s money.

Joe Branton: Really? Wow.

Brad Page: Yeah, so not an inexpensive proposition.

Joe Branton: The 34-inch scale that Fender went for is extra interesting as well, because, whilst today that is the industry standard—99% of electric basses are going to be a 34-inch scale—at the time, no one went with this. Not one company went with this for years. Everyone messed around with a 30-inch scale, like Burns were doing it right into the 60s, Gibson… what you call the “short scale” bass. That was the scale that the competition almost universally went with. Fender were the only ones going 34, and at that time for the bulk of the 50s… not really until that 1957 body switch for Fender where it became the Precision Bass we know today, not until then did other companies start catching on and mimicking the 34-inch scale. It was a complete anomaly.

Brad Page: It’s amazing that so many of the things that Fender settled on became the industry standard. He just got it right the first time.

Some of the early pioneers of playing the electric bass… there was a guy named Joel Price, who was a country player. Bob Manners, who played with Liberace, believe it or not, who had a TV show at the time in the U.S. So people would see the Fender bass on TV; that was good exposure for it.

Lionel Hampton, the jazz player, had a couple of key bass players in his band: Roy Johnson initially and then Monk Montgomery, who was the brother of legendary jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery. Monk Montgomery is one of the first pioneers of playing the electric bass under Lionel Hampton’s guidance or influence.

One of the first rock records to feature the electric bass was a band called The Treniers—a guy named Shifty Henry.

Joe Branton: Such a good name. That is pure 50s right there.

Brad Page: Played on a song called “Rock-a-Beatin’ Boogie” from 1953.

One of the, I think, forgotten pioneers of the electric bass was actually a woman named Joan Anderson, who played with a country band called Bill Peer and his Melody Boys and Girls, which also featured Patsy Cline before she went solo. It’s interesting; there were a couple of women playing electric bass very early on, written out of history unfortunately, as these things tend to happen.

You mentioned the Gibson EB-1, that’s their first stab at the electric bass, right, 1953?

Joe Branton: That’s right, yeah.

Brad Page: The Hofner bass comes out in 1956.

Joe Branton: Yeah, and again, another bass with a 30-inch scale. See, no one is going with Fender’s 34-inch scale at this point in time. It’s wild to think that it didn’t catch on, not really until the dawn of the 60s did people start copying it.

Brad Page: There was a British trade embargo against a lot of U.S. products from 1951 to 1959 that cut off your access to a lot of American brands, including the electric bass. So that was kind of Hofner’s “in,” I think, to the British market. They really didn’t have competition from Fender.

Joe Branton: Yeah, Hofner and Framus… Burns, for the UK companies, these were the things that we were playing. Rapier as a smaller brand that were existing over here. But yeah, those were the things people were playing. The P-Bass definitely took its time over here. I don’t think British music was especially exposed to it, really, until the 60s when you saw those trade embargos go away. But then you also saw the birth of soul, so you had like Stax and Motown Records. And then you’ve got Donald “Duck” Dunn, you’ve got James Jamerson… those two guys alone, they are like the P-Bass players. They’re the people that bring it to this whole new level. They essentially defined an entire genre by the sound of a Precision Bass with flat-wound strings. And I think at that point, probably more universally, it became accepted as the industry standard.

Brad Page: Right, right. And we’ll talk more about those guys as we get further along. I believe the first recorded electric bass solo was by a British band, The Shadows. Jet Harris, a song called “Nivram.”

Joe Branton: But he’d have been playing a Burns, one of his famous signature Shadows basses.

Brad Page: Right, that would have been 1961. Jet Harris was voted the NME Readers’ Poll number one solo instrumentalist in 1962, which is interesting for a bass player, right?

Joe Branton: Wow, that’s impressive.

Brad Page: Of course, around that time you started to have some of the things like what they would call the “Tic-Tac” bass that you’d hear on Duane Eddy songs like “Rebel Rouser.”

Joe Branton: The Bass VI, so you know, that sort of early 60s… of course, Gretsch had already introduced their version of the Bass VI by then, but the Fender Bass VI turned up in the 60s. Leo was always trying to work out where the bass would sit.

Brad Page: Yeah, let’s step back a little bit and talk a little bit more about the Precision Bass. In ’54, they introduced the contoured body, a little bit of a design change. I think that’s when the sunburst came out and the white pickup. And then in ’57… ’57, I believe, is when really the definitive look of what we think of when we think of a Precision today with that very distinctive pickup, the bridge, a different pickguard, larger headstock—all of that came about in ’57, I believe.

Joe Branton: That’s right. ’57 is when we got that. We didn’t get rosewood boards, though, until a little later, so we’re still on maple boards at that point. ’59, I think, for rosewood. So sort of ’57… that’s really quintessential: two-tone sunburst (not three-tone yet), gold anodized plate, great big baseball bat maple neck, and the new headstock. And that, of course, is, I guess, what we think of as a Precision Bass today. They moved away from that single-coil pickup towards the split-humbucking pickup.

Brad Page: Right. And then in March of 1960, they introduced the Jazz Bass, which I know you’re a big fan of the Jazz Bass. Why don’t you maybe explain to people what the difference is between a Precision and a Jazz Bass?

Joe Branton: Yeah, I guess they do look kind of similar from a layman’s perspective. The Jazz Bass was great because it was the first time Leo Fender really listened to people and listened to what people wanted from an instrument. The necks on P-Basses were obviously big and fat, so he decided to make a Jazz Bass neck very slender. It has a really aggressive taper, so the strings are very close together at the nut. The idea was making it more comfortable to play, faster to play. And instead of just having one pickup bang in the middle of the body—that’s what the P-Bass has, that split humbucker—you’ve got two single coils: one in the middle of the body (so you can still make a Jazz Bass sound like a P-Bass), but then you’ve got one wedged closer to the bridge. Two volume controls, so you can blend between them, and that’s when we really got those kind of honkier sounds coming out of bass. And certainly, I would say the 80s is defined by bridge pickups on Jazz Basses and that sort of thing. The body was different; it was offset to mimic the other instruments coming out at the time, the Jazzmaster, the Jaguar. Fender were going through their “offset Beach Boys” phase.

Brad Page: Yeah, define “offset” for the folks at home.

Joe Branton: Oh, of course. So, probably a slightly angled body. Rather than it being straight as you look at it standing up, think of it as being slightly off-kilter and extended in the lower bout and the upper horn.

Brad Page: Now you play both a P-Bass and a Jazz Bass. I know you’ve owned many basses over the years. What’s your personal preference?

Joe Branton: Oh… it’s… I have a Jazz Bass that, you know, I definitely end up using probably more than any other instrument. It’s probably been on more records I’ve ever recorded and done a few more tours than anything else. I love the versatility of a Jazz Bass; having those two pickups is fantastic. But I would never, ever choose it as my favorite. My favorite thing is a very, very simple Precision Bass with flat-wounds. If you just want to sound fantastic, then a P-Bass is the answer. And there is no world where I would ever choose a Jazz Bass over a P-Bass. If you asked me what was the best bass, it’s obviously a Precision Bass. Everything about a P-Bass seems to be spot on. He just got it right. That was the thing; he just got it right.

Brad Page: In ’61, Gibson introduced the EB-3, which is kind of now… was that short scale or long scale? I forget.

Joe Branton: Short scale. They did, at this time, for the first time ever, introduce a Fender-scale bass, so they introduced the EB-3L as well, but not initially. You can get very few 60s EB-3Ls; they more commonly appeared in the 70s. But of course, the EB-3, dear listener, was on an SG-type body shape—so a really small body—so the problem was when they started using 34-inch scale necks, the neck dive was horrendous. You would snap that bass in half as soon as you let go of it.

Brad Page: Yeah, neck-heavy, so once you let go of the neck, it would immediately drop to the ground. The Gibson Thunderbird comes out in ’63, and that’s a long scale, full scale, however you want to refer to it.

Joe Branton: Yeah, that’s right. Fantastic, fantastic bass.

Brad Page: Yeah, oh, I love them. And they just look super cool.

Joe Branton: They do. I can’t pull them off. You can’t wear them up high because they’re so wide. So, difficult for me, but I do love them objectively.

Brad Page: In ’65, Fender is purchased by CBS, which kind of changes things, and eventually, the CBS-era Fenders kind of have a bad rap, right?

Joe Branton: Yeah, yeah, they do. They weren’t the same. But I mean, they’re still fantastic instruments. It’s one of those things I think there’s more in the rumor than there is in the fact.

Brad Page: I would agree. I’ve owned a few 70s Fenders and Gibsons, and I think they’re perfectly great guitars.

In 1966, Ampeg released the AUB-1, which I believe was the first electric fretless.

Joe Branton: Yeah, I didn’t know that. First electric fretless… it is such a great, great bass.

Brad Page: Now, do you play fretless much?

Joe Branton: I do, yeah. Probably about a quarter of the time. I love it. I play upright as well; I’m trying to play upright more this year—I started lessons on that. I’d really like to play upright more. But I do have a couple of fretlesses. I always record bits and pieces on records. I love it as a more expressive instrument than a fretted bass. It’s just… you’ve got to find the right track where it’s applicable, I guess. The AUB-1 bass was incredible. The fact that it was… if you’ve never seen one, dear listener, it’s a solid bass with f-holes, like you get on a cello or an upright bass, but they go the whole way through the body. Which just looks amazing. They’re incredibly cool-looking, hard to come by, and expensive.

Brad Page: Yeah. Once we get into the 70s, then we start to see an explosion of kind of more… I don’t know if I would necessarily call them “boutiquey,” but more kind of customized, custom-type basses. Alembic in 1971… what were some of your favorite oddball 70s basses?

Joe Branton: Well, the 70s is a wonderful time because Japan steps into the ring in the 70s and kind of takes a little bit of that American dominance of the music instrument manufacturers. Sure, they take the bulk of the 70s to really get it right—the 80s is where Japan comes alive—but throughout the 70s you start to see kind of more things: Ibanez becomes a pretty big player; certainly towards the late 70s you get the Roadster, the Roadstar, the Musician. These are all fantastic basses, most of which offered fretted or fretless. They also started exploring things like ebony wood for fretboards, as well as using maple, which is great on fretless instruments. Stuff like that was fantastic. I think also a brand that we didn’t mention in the 60s, you had Silvertone, Danelectro, making fantastic Sears catalog guitars. Affordable but incredible in their own right, and they were doing their own thing on the bass front as well. But yeah, in the 70s, what would be my favorite sort of type of bass? It’s still so dominated by Fender at this point. The Fender Precision Bass is still absolutely king.

Brad Page: It’s the one to beat, right?

Joe Branton: Yeah, exactly. The problem is towards the late 70s, active circuitry arrives. And this will come into play more in the 80s, but people kind of fall out of love towards the end of the 70s with that classic Fender bass tone. They want something more aggressive, more sparkly, more clear, more clinical. And so they start cutting huge holes in the back of their, by today’s standards, very expensive vintage Fender basses, putting batteries and active preamps in them, and throwing away their, sort of now sought-after, original Fender pickups.

Brad Page: Right. And you’ve got, like we mentioned, Alembic. You look at some of those basses and they have six knobs and five switches and all kinds of extra stuff on there.

Joe Branton: This is it. This is it. And it becomes standard in the 80s. We start seeing active circuitry, so having a preamp where you’d have bass, middle, and treble controlled on the bass itself becomes kind of a standard. By this point, the Precision Bass and the Jazz Bass are sort of “old hat.” It’s why people were modifying them so much. They didn’t have—that time period didn’t look as lovingly back at the 50s and 60s as we do now. Bass gear was “old tech” to be discarded or modified.

Brad Page: It’s interesting how, you know, the closer we are to something, we tend to undervalue it as opposed to once something gets to be 20 years old, and that’s constantly rolling, right? Like now instruments and amps and stuff from the 90s are now, quote-unquote, “vintage.”

Joe Branton: The other big brand, I guess, that came into play, who really brought in an instrument that was a frontrunner along with Gibson, along with Fender, is Yamaha with the Broad Bass, or BB as they’re more commonly known. That occurred at this time, which was very much a Fender-style instrument. This used the same pickups—it was a PJ split, so you got a Jazz pickup and a Precision Bass pickup in the bulk of them. So it did a bit of both. The body shape is very similar, although original in its own right, and it’s a 34-inch scale, similar headstock tuners in the same place. This was Yamaha stepping in and offering something that was along the same lines as a Precision and a Jazz, but with that incredible Japanese build quality that was occurring around the 70s and 80s.

Brad Page: Yeah, a lot of those brands started out making exact copies that sort of got them in some legal trouble, right? But that was kind of their… they were doing knock-offs and then eventually evolved into coming up with their own designs and innovations, and some of those are some of the best instruments you can get from the time and still to this day, in a lot of ways, I think undervalued or underappreciated.

Joe Branton: Yeah, there are still a few things that I think you can… less and less… older things that maybe have… that you can pick up for a reasonable price that people haven’t quite caught on to the fact that they’re really good. What happens is that you get priced out of the 60s stuff. And so then those CBS-era Fenders that you poo-pooed 10 years ago, now suddenly they become desirable just because the sheer fact that nobody can afford those 60s models. Everything goes up in price and you find yourself priced out, and so you start to look at things like Ibanez and Yamaha and stuff that really people weren’t so attracted to. Now those things have value, too.

You look at one of the best brands for high-quality Fender copies—and this, dear listener, is if you’re not aware of them, this is a brand to look out for: Tokai. And what Tokai were turning out throughout the 80s was absolutely incredible, in both guitar and basses, in both Gibson copies and Fender copies. But their “Jazz Sound” bass was their Jazz Bass and their “Hard Puncher” was their Precision Bass, and they are every bit the quality that Fender were putting out at that time. But until recently, you could pick up a good old Tokai for the best part of probably about 500 quid over here, probably about $700 over your way. But now we’re seeing them go for 1,100 pounds, so that’s $1,500, $1,600 U.S. I assume it’s probably maybe a bit cheaper for you just because of proximity to Japan, but still, they’re no longer the cheap way in, so to speak. They’ll cost you real money now, too.

Brad Page: I used to play a few Fernandes guitars back in the 80s that, again, were great Fender knock-offs that in many cases played as good, if not better.

Joe Branton: Well, you know, look at Green Day. Billie Joe Armstrong, the guitarist from Green Day, his guitar that made their first few records is a Fernandes Strat copy. That speaks volumes for that brand. They were great.

Brad Page: Yeah. We also see the first five-strings in the 70s. So, innovation continues.

Joe Branton: That’s interesting. Five-string, I guess, started to become people wanting a low B. I’ve always favored a high C on a five-string. I like it that way around, but low B, I guess, became very popular. Certainly that worked moving forward because heavier genres, metal bands, they wanted those lower tunings. Five-string is perfect for that. It was also great for soul and anything like that that just needed that sort of low register.

Brad Page: As we get into the 80s, we see on one hand, a company like Steinberger who kind of reinvents the bass…

Joe Branton: I love him. Ned Steinberger—what an absolute hero. Few people can claim to have offered more original, working ideas and design to the electric guitar and bass. I think the man is an absolute genius. I’ve loved everything he’s ever done.

Brad Page: I mean, you can go to the NAMM show every year and find all kinds of crazy inventions, but so few of them catch on. But what he did actually, multiple times, has stuck around. They were innovations that were valuable and influential. And of course, the headless bass is probably the thing that most people identify with him.

Joe Branton: Small rectangular body, headless bass. He was exploring carbon fiber as a material. That in itself was revolutionary at the time. Two-way truss rods, I think he was the first for that. But the guy was an absolute genius; all the stuff was fantastic. Of course, Steinberger later got bought by Gibson, and the instruments became a little cheaper, made out of wood. They still had the essence, but he went on to found NS Design instead, which is his company to today.

Brad Page: And on kind of the other side of that, Fender launches the Squier brand in 1982, which is kind of their budget or entry, beginner, however you want to say it. But that made a true Fender-style guitar available at a price point for beginners, which… we always need people coming into the business and picking up guitar for the first time.

Joe Branton: Yeah, it was great. That was a real change for Fender because obviously Squier were introduced to combat Japan’s sort of lawsuit-era instruments coming from Tokai and Fernandez and people like that. Squier was made in Japan at the time initially, and the idea was that they would have those entry-level instruments to kind of have a company owned by Fender so Fender can make the money from the knock-offs rather than not making the money from them. But Squier’s still out there today and actually making some great instruments today. I would recommend a Squier Strat or Tele or P-Bass or whatever to anyone who’s looking to get started. They’re fantastic.

Brad Page: As time goes on, there’s sort of less and less new ground to explore, but there are still people doing some innovative things. What are some of your favorite things that you’ve seen in the last couple of decades?

Joe Branton: Well, one of the things that I thought was kind of the, I guess, a movement that I think was one of the most innovative was, in many ways, the least innovative because it was looking back. For the first time over the last 20 years or so, we’ve started to get the concept of reissues, which is fantastic for someone like me who loves traditional stuff and I’m not really into sort of modern concepts, fan frets, vaulted, whatnots. Like Ned Steinberger is as far as I go. Everything that happened after that… it’s too modern for me. But past this point, we got all these brands releasing stuff that looked like the old things, but maybe took away some of those weirder quirks, so they’d have working truss rods, the pickups wouldn’t be microphonic, maybe they’ve refined the neck a little bit so it’s actually comfortable to play—lots of little things like that.

And it was great seeing… I love brands like… we talked about the Ampeg bass earlier. Eastwood– fantastic brand for making affordable guitars inspired by old instruments. They do a version of the Ampeg bass. You couldn’t pick up an AUB-1 probably for less than maybe 8,000 pounds at the moment, certainly not over here. But you can, for about 600 quid, get the Eastwood copy. And I think that’s wonderful that people have access to that. And you had other brands like Vintage doing a similar thing. Squier introduced their “Classic Vibe” range, which meant that they were doing things not 100% accurate to specific years of Fender’s past, but general copies of stuff that sort of existed back then.

Brad Page: Just capturing the feel and, as they say, the “vibe” of those vintage instruments.

Joe Branton: Exactly, exactly. So for me, I love that that’s become a thing. More than lots of people have looked forward; there are lots of brands doing really creative modern stuff. There’s a brand called Meta Basses—unfortunately named just before Facebook rebranded, so difficult to search for them now. But they’re a little French company and they make instruments out of carbon fiber. Their shapes are so elegant and interesting and the build quality is so extremely high. I love things like that; I think they’re really interesting.

Brad Page: Let’s talk—and you touched on it earlier—but let’s talk about some of the important ambassadors of the bass over the years. Of course, James Jamerson, Motown legend, hugely influential across almost all genres in that his technique and style really influenced so many people that it influences people today who don’t even know that they’re influenced by James Jamerson, right? So many great bass parts. “For Once in My Life” is one of my favorites from James Jamerson.

Joe Branton: Yeah, absolutely. And I think you can’t speak about Jamerson without talking about Duck Dunn. In many ways, they were… I often think of them only probably in my head, but like as these two nemeses of Stax versus Motown. Like early soul and R&B, they were just so different, but so similar in the same at the same time. I love Booker T. and the M.G.’s; I love everything they’ve ever done. And hearing the Stax records that Dunn played on and the Motown records that Jamerson played on, they just brought this vibe, this ability to groove but also solo on the bass, which was so uncommon at the time. They brought like a mojo, just a coolness to the bass guitar that probably hadn’t existed before those two men.

Brad Page: Duck Dunn is very much a groove player. Not fancy, not a lot of fills and things like that, but just the groove is what he was all about. Just always in the pocket. Jamerson had all of that, but he also had the flourish, you know? He was a little bit more fancy, if you will. And then you have guys like Bob Babbitt, who was kind of the number two chair at Motown, who played on a lot of those records too. Jamerson gets so much of the credit—well deserved—but you also had Bob Babbitt playing as well. And at Stax, originally you had a guy named Louis Steinberg, who was there before Duck Dunn, who played on a lot of that early stuff as well. And then you’ve got players like Carol Kaye in the Wrecking Crew out in LA. That’s hugely influential.

Joe Branton: Absolutely. Yeah, that time period really we started seeing the first “bass heroes,” I guess.

Brad Page: Yeah, in all using the electric bass still at a time when I think studios in particular were more inclined to go to the upright bass. The electric bass I think was adopted quicker for live performance just because it was so much easier to cart around and more sturdy and more reliable, right? Like a travel instrument at that time rather than it being a serious one. Right, I think that’s how a lot of particularly studio guys looked at it like, “Okay, you can play your electric bass live, but when we’re in the studio, we’ll do a stand-up bass.” But Carol Kaye, Jamerson, Duck Dunn—people like that really brought… and there is a very distinct sound and feel to an electric bass that you don’t get from the stand-up that became the defining sound of particularly soul music, but rock as well. And then you’ve got Paul McCartney, who’s hugely influenced by James Jamerson, but kind of develops his own sound that becomes incredibly influential and is my personal favorite bass player. I love McCartney’s stuff.

Joe Branton: Yeah, he’s incredible. His melody work’s amazing. If you ever look at… I studied The Beatles at college when I was studying bass there, and it’s so funny seeing any of Paul McCartney’s basslines. The guitarist would get their music and it would be a couple of pages because, you know, it’s a verse and a chorus looped. But Paul McCartney just played a different thing the whole way through. There were no repeats; they are full compositions. He’s not playing the same thing every chorus or every verse; he’s walking with the melodies. Everything about it was just a unique way of looking at the bass as an instrument.

But I think we talk about it versus the double bass. Early Precision Bass was designed—early bass and the Precision Bass—they wanted it to emulate the upright. Flat-wound strings emulated the sound of an upright bass.

Brad Page: You had the mutes, right?

Joe Branton: Exactly. They weren’t even on springs on originals; they were just stuck in the bridge plate of P-Basses. The foam was just in there. The idea was you would only ever want that sound, and that was the sound. And it wasn’t really until 1966 when John Entwistle helped Rotosound develop round-wound strings. Round-wound strings for bass did not exist until then. And so you didn’t get that driven, rock and roll P-Bass tone. And who’d have thought those two things would meld so well together—a Precision Bass and round-wound strings? Before then, it’s kind of been a different sounding instrument. And that one change changed everything. And then the P-Bass became a rock and roll instrument, not a great alternative for a double bass if you’re traveling, but a great rock and roll instrument.

Brad Page: An instrument in and of itself, right? Unique. Exactly. Yeah, and Entwistle, I mean, is another one of my favorite bass players—just a monster player and very influential and his use of like bi-amping and things like that really had of his time with a lot of that stuff.

Joe Branton: Totally, totally. And he had Fender make him a slab-body Precision Bass. So the slab body of the original ’51, but with the appointments of a modern P-Bass, so the split humbucking pickup and the modern headstock. He had Fender make him one of those, which was the bass that he put the first sets of round-wounds on. That was the first instrument that got round-wounds. It was a P-Bass, not anything else, because he’s not especially known for P-Basses—he’s known for lots of weird things—but it was a P-Bass that he designed round-wounds for.

And you mentioned him, I think of Entwistle, Chris Squire, but then around this time you start getting these incredible sort of lead bass players thanks to round-wounds. And for me, the number one who was a P-Bass player with round-wounds who just played into a big stack—it was always driven and he just used the dynamics of his right hand for, you know, to keep things less driven sometimes—was John Wetton, the original bass player of King Crimson. Vocalist and bass player, everything he did was incredible. I think he brought King Crimson alive for me. All his lines are just incredibly interesting. And a lot of the time, Robert Fripp’s actually doing just weird stuff in the background, and so much of early Crimson is John Wetton soloing, doing lead lines, improvising. And so much of that improvisation is kept on the records, whether it’s in time or not, and I love him for that. I think he was brilliant.

Brad Page: It’s funny; he’s mostly, I think, people think of him as the vocalist, right? And he doesn’t get listed among the great bass players as often.

Joe Branton: Just go and listen to “Starless.” If you want to hear an incredible bass solo, go listen to “Starless.” That is John Wetton at his absolute best. And that’s a P-Bass.

Brad Page: Then you have the funk revolution where Larry Graham and the whole pop and slap kind of thing… Bootsy Collins, all of that stuff.

Joe Branton: Jazz Basses definitely become more popular around this time because they suit that style a little more. Still some P’s, totally, but like a lot of those players, you know, Larry Graham, Bootsy Collins, they were on Jazzes.

Brad Page: Who are some of your other favorite bass players? People who you think, particularly maybe ones that don’t get enough recognition, who would you like to call out?

Joe Branton: My favorite bass player is a really obvious one, you know, for anyone who’s ever listened to my podcast, but it is Juan Alderete from The Mars Volta and Racer X as well. But he’s done countless other projects as well; he’s the bass player on most of Omar Rodríguez-López’s solo albums and a lot of his solo bands as well, which I think is where Juan does his best work. He had his own solo project called Vato Negro which you can barely find anywhere to listen to, but I think for interesting tones because he messes around a lot with effects, but also just for great lines, an incredible groove, and an ability to pin down the fundamentals of a band. When you’ve got a guitarist going crazy like Omar, the drummers that they worked with are normally very sort of crazy, chops drummers, and you’ve just got Juan Alderete there absolutely holding down the fundamentals and still keeping it interesting.

He was selling off a lot of his basses last year. He was actually, he was very sadly in a bike accident a few years ago and he was in a coma for a while. When he came out of that, he’s now cognitively impaired, and he was selling a lot of his bass collection in order to raise money for the continued sort of care that he now needs, which is very sad to have such an incredible bass legend have that occur to. But I managed to buy one of his fretless basses that he’d played on… it was actually, he sold a couple of basses that were on some of my favorite records and I didn’t quite get in quick enough to get some of those, which was a shame, but I did get his fretless Nordstrand Acinonyx, which is something he’d used. It was the first one made because Nordstrand made the fretless version of that bass for Juan because he was largely a fretless player. So it’s the first one of those. So I’m very happy to own… you know, he’s probably my biggest bass hero. So getting to own a bass owned and played by that man… that’s not something a lot of people get to do, so I’m very grateful for that.

Brad Page: Yeah, that’s fantastic.

Summing up sort of the history of bass, where do you think we’re going?

Joe Branton: Well, I think the great thing about bass is it still continues to look back as much as it looks forward. I think we have wonderful new innovations: active circuitry, fan frets, everything else that’s extended range, everything else that’s coming out. And that’s great; I love that modern people can get involved in bass in that regard. But it’s really nice to see there’s still loads of companies making great versions of the originals and those classic 50s and 60s basses that we revere so much. So I am just enjoying the… there seems to be a really good jazz and soul revival at the moment, and I’m seeing so many great melodic bass players playing old P-Basses or short scales with flat-wounds doing just really gorgeous, interesting melody work. So I’m really happy that that’s where bass seems to be going as an ensemble instrument that can offer a little bit more. So I hope that continues to be the case.

Brad Page: And in terms of where you are going in the future, of course, the Guitar Nerds podcast—one of my all-time favorite podcasts—that’s still rolling. Where’s the easiest place for people to find that?

Joe Branton: Well, yes, I mean, you can listen to the Guitar Nerds podcast wherever you get your podcasts, dear listener. So it’s available on all the streaming platforms. Don’t listen on Spotify—listen elsewhere, it’s much better. But you can listen to that wherever you get your podcast. You can check out any of the other stuff we do over on Instagram or Facebook. You can find us on Patreon, and there’s even a Discord if you want to get super nerdy.

Brad Page: And your band Polymath? Do you have new material coming out? I know you’ve got a tour coming up this spring in the UK or Europe?

Joe Branton: Yeah, that’s right. We’re doing—we’ve got about three weeks in Europe and the UK, and we’ve got a new album coming out around then that’s being put out by an American record label called The Lasers Edge, who are this fantastic prog label. We were really happy to get picked up by them, actually. So they’re putting out our new album, Something Deeply Hidden. But yeah, that’s—it’s a great record for interesting instrumental prog that’s largely inspired by like Ethiopian jazz. But heavy-ish.

Brad Page: All right, Joe Branton, it’s a pleasure to talk to you, to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing your bass expertise with us.

Joe Branton: It’s been wonderful to be on the podcast. Thanks so much, Brad. It’s been a lot of fun talking about the best bass in the world: the Fender Precision Bass.

Brad Page: Yes, sir. Thank you, Joe. Take care.

Brad Page: There you go. That’s our celebration of the bass guitar and our 200th episode. Thanks to Joe Branton for joining us for this episode. If you’re a guitar player or a bass player and you’ve never listened to the Guitar Nerds podcast, please make sure you do; I highly recommend it.

This podcast will be back in about two weeks with another new episode. You can catch up on all of our previous shows on our website, Lovethatsongpodcast.com, or find us in your favorite podcast app. If you’d like to support the show, the best thing you can do is to tell someone about it. Share it with your friends and family. The word-of-mouth support from people like you is worth more than any advertising or sponsorship, so thank you.

Let’s close out this episode with something from Joe Branton’s band, Polymath. This is the title cut from their current EP; it’s a track called “The Halting Problem.” And I will see you next time.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

Fender Precision Bass:
https://www.fender.com

Joe Branton:
https://www.instagram.com/yoseph900

Guitar Nerds Podcast
https://www.guitarnerds.net

Polymath
https://www.poly-math.net

Alembic:
https://www.alembicguitars.com/

Ampeg
https://www.ampeg.com

Gibson:
https://www.gibson.com/collections/shop-all-gibson-bass-guitars

Hofner basses:
https://www.hofner.com/en/

Ibanez
https://www.ibanez.com

Meta Guitars:
https://metaguitars.fr/basses/

Rickenbacker
https://www.rickenbacker.com

Squier bass guitars:
https://www.fender.com/collections/squier-electric-basses

Tokai:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C5%8Dkai_Gakki

Yamaha:
https://usa.yamaha.com/products/musical_instruments/guitars_basses/index.html

This episode, we take a deep dive into one of the funkiest singles ever recorded: “For the Love of Money” by The O’Jays. Join us as we explore the intricate production techniques, the powerful social message, the rich history behind this iconic track. and why this track remains a cornerstone of Philly Soul. Don’t miss out on this deep dive into one of the funkiest hits ever!

TRANSCRIPT:

Some people gotta have it, some people really need it… it’s the “I’m In Love With That Song” Podcast, coming at you on the Pantheon Podcast Network. I’m your host, Brad Page, and each episode here, I pick one of my favorite songs and we take a look at it from all angles, trying to understand what makes it a great song. If you’re a musician, great. But you don’t have to be one to enjoy this show. We don’t get into music theory or get bogged down in a lot of technical jargon. We just listen.

On this edition of the show, we’ll be listening to a song that’s one of the funkiest singles and biggest dance floor hits of all time. And I also think it’s one of the most sonically interesting tracks to ever hit the charts. It’s one of the key songs in the Philly Soul catalog and an important piece of R&B history. If you haven’t guessed it by now, I’m talking about “For The Love Of Money” by the O’Jays.

The O’Jays had a long road to the top. Eddie Levert and Walter Williams started singing together in Canton, Ohio as teenagers in church, where so many black artists started their career. Not much money in singing gospel, though, so they moved into the secular world, joined by William Powell, Bobby Massey, and Bill Isles around 1960.

First, they called themselves The Triumphs, then The Mascots, and eventually the O’Jays, named after famed Ohio DJ Eddie O’Jay. But regardless of the name, they had no luck selling Records. They bounced from label to label with little success, scoring a few minor hits that didn’t leave much of a lasting impression. Finally, in 1968, they scored a top ten hit on the R&B charts with “I’ll Be Sweeter Tomorrow”.

None of the singles released after that did much business, though. They seemed stuck amongst the ranks of the lower tier acts, they just weren’t able to break through. Eventually, Bobby Massey and Bill Isles left the group, leaving Walter Williams, William Powell, and Eddie Leverett to soldier on.

But they had begun working with the production team of Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff. And when Gamble and Huff made a deal with Columbia Records and launched their Philadelphia International label, they signed the O’Jays– and that’s when things started to really fall into place.

Gamble and Huff assembled a team of top-notch musicians, including Norman Harris, Roland Chambers, and Bobby Eli on guitars; Anthony Jackson on bass; Earl Young on drums; percussionist Larry Washington; Vince Montana on vibes; and Leon Huff himself on piano. They became known as MFSB. Officially, that stood for “Mother, Father, Sister, Brother”, but unofficially, you can imagine a slightly more risqué interpretation.

With that lineup of stellar musicians, the production skills of Gamble and Huff, plus the songwriting talent of people like Gene McFadden and John Whitehead, you had the perfect team to put together songs for vocalists like the O’Jays to layer their magic on top of. Something great was bound to happen.

Their first masterpiece was a track called “Backstabbers”, released in 1972. It was a huge hit, and I think one of the greatest soul singles of all time.

The “Backstabbers” album followed, and that included a few more classics, including the Song that hit number one both on the R&B and the Hot 100 charts. You know this one– it’s “Love Train”.

As great as the Backstabbers” album was, their next album was even better. “Ship Ahoy” was an album full of politically and socially conscious R&B. The title cut, “Ship Ahoy”, is a nine- minute sonic masterpiece, an unflinching look at the slave trade. It’s one of the most powerful tracks ever laid down. It’s worthy of its own podcast episode.

The album was built around that track as the centerpiece. The album also featured the single “Put Your Hands Together”, and the sonic marvel that is “For The Love Of Money”.

“For The Love of Money” was written by Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff, and bass player Anthony Jackson, who came up with the riff that this song is built on. It features the MFSB lineup of musicians, with the O’Jays on vocals: William Powell, Walter Williams and Eddie Levert. Walter Williams and Eddie Levert trade off on the lead vocal.

The title comes from a Bible verse from the First Epistle to Timothy: “For the love of money is the root of all evil”.

Now, I guess I have to acknowledge before we go further that this song was used as the theme song for “The Apprentice”, which hurts my heart, but don’t hold it against this song. This song was written and recorded over 30 years before that horrible show. It is incredibly ironic, to say the least. And for the record, lead vocalist Eddie Levert demanded that Donald Trump stop using “Love Train” in his campaign, which tells you where the O’Jays stand.

The song was recorded in the fall of 1973 at Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia. The way Gamble and Huff would typically plan a recording project would be to record the backing track in one session that might last a day or two. This would usually be a large ensemble with almost a dozen players. After overdubbing, they could end up with 50 to 60 parts.

Gamble and Huff would then take a rough mix of those backing tracks and listen to that over and over while they came up with the vocal parts. Once they worked out the vocal arrangements, then they’d bring in the singers, in this case the O’Jays, to record their parts. After that, any additional overdubs, such as guitar solos, string section, or horns, those would be recorded last in a separate session.

“For The Love Of Money” begins with Anthony Jackson’s bass part, one of the most memorable bass parts ever recorded. The first thing you notice is the heavy reverb on the first half of that bass part, which completely drops out the second time through the riff. That was done during the final mix when Kenny Gamble grabbed the knob for the reverb, cranked it up, and then immediately turned it all the way down, creating a stark contrast in the sound between the first and second halves of that part. It also sounds to me like Anthony Jackson is playing his bass with a pick rather than his fingers.

The other thing you may notice there is the phasing effect on the drums; that was recorded using an Eventide phaser that was a brand new toy at Sigma Sound at the time.

Another stunning effect is the ghostly sound of the backing vocals here. That is a reverse echo effect. Now, remember, this was in the days long before digital recording, when these effects had to be created manually. This was created by studio engineer Joe Tarsia. Tarsia took the tape, put it on the tape machine backwards, and recorded echo on different tracks in reverse. So that when you play the tape forwards, the echo comes before the original vocal.

Then there’s a short instrumental section before the first verse. Conga drums and percussion are added and the horns make their first appearance.

I love that little bass lick there.

Let’s pick it up with the first verse. Listen to how the horns beef up the bass part. They make it even heavier. And notice the guitar that’s using a wah-wah pedal and just chucking the strings.

And we’re gonna get a cool little bass guitar break here on the next verse.

The backing vocals are gonna change it up a bit; before, they were singing “money, money, money. Money’, but now they’re singing “for the love of money”. Of course, that’s the title of the song.

Let’s just go back and bring up the vocals there.

The congas are pretty active in the left channel. Horns are on the right.

Now we’ve come to the bridge. Walter Williams sings the first two lines, Eddie Levert takes the last two.

Here’s the next verse, and listen to how the sound has really filled out. Remember back when the track first started, it was mostly just the bass and the drums. Now you’ve got all kinds of instrumentation going on, plus the vocals, and I don’t think it sounds cluttered. There’s a lot happening, but it’s not overcrowded. Everything sits in the mix really well. It’s one of those tracks where you can focus on any one of the instruments, and they’re all doing something kind of interesting. And of course, the vocal performance is just great.

There’s a short instrumental section.

Here’s a repeat of the bridge. This time, let’s drop the vocals a bit so we can hear more of the backing track, because the band is really cooking here, especially Anthony Jackson’s bass.

Back to the verse section, and now you can hear some sound effects. Not sure if they were created by a synthesizer, but you can hear these swirling and swishing sounds start to appear throughout the song.

And now we hear a new musical refrain added by the horns, and that becomes a key element of the song as we approach the end.

I should note here that we’re listening to the album version of this song. When it was released as a single, it was edited down to 3:42, but the full album version runs about 7:15. Over this extended length, the track, especially that repeating bassline, becomes almost hypnotic, almost like the seductive pull of money itself. As the song says, “Money can drive some people out of their minds”.

Here’s one of the few times when you can really hear the electric piano in the left channel.

And now we get a new refrain from the backing vocals. “People, don’t let money change you.” Which is really the ultimate message of the song.

Let’s bring up the vocals one more time.

“For The Love Of Money” by the O’Jays.

The “Ship Ahoy” album sold over a million copies. It was the biggest selling R&B album of 1974, according to Billboard. But more importantly, it’s a milestone album for Philly Soul; it’s a social message that still resonates today, and it’s the O’Jays’ masterpiece. It’s up there with Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On’ in my opinion. If you don’t have a copy of this album, go get it!

William Powell passed away in May of 1977. At the time of this recording, Eddie Levert and Walter Williams are still with us, and up until recently, were still touring as the O’Jays with Eric Nolan Grant, who joined them in 1995. Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, they’re still with us, too.

Thanks for joining me for this edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” Podcast, here on the Pantheon Podcast Network. I’d love to hear from you, so post a comment on our Facebook page or send an email to lovethatsongpodcast@gmail.com. And please, leave a review of the show wherever it is that you listen. That’s always great.

The best way to support this show is to just tell people about it. Share this podcast with your friends and your family. Your recommendations beat any advertising every time. So thanks.

New episodes of this podcast come out on the 1st and the 15th of every month, so look for a new episode then. And all of our previous shows– all 180+ of them– are available on our website lovethatsongpodcast.com, and they’re also in your favorite Podcast app. So there’s plenty for you to listen to until I’m back here again. Thanks again for listening to this episode on the O’Jays and “For The Love Of Money”.

REFERENCES:

The O’Jays
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_O%27Jays

Eddie Levert
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Levert

Walter Williams
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Williams_(musician)

Kenny Gamble
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenny_Gamble

Leon Huff
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Huff

MFSB
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MFSB

Sigma Sound Studios
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigma_Sound_Studios

Ship Ahoy album
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_Ahoy_(album)

Backstabbers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_Stabbers

Anthony Jackson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Jackson_(musician)

Norman Harris
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Harris

Joe Tarsia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Tarsia

Philadelphia International Records
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_International_Records

Gene McFadden
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_McFadden

Eric Nolan Grant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Nolan_Grant

Many bands would be running out of ideas by their 8^th album, but not Earth, Wind &Fire – many consider All ‘n All to be their best record. Freshly inspired by the varied sounds & rhythms of South America, Maurice White brought his genre-blending compositions to new heights on this 1977 album, as evidenced by the opening track, “Serpentine Fire”, which White himself described as Earth Wind & Fire’s “most ambitious single”.

TRANSCRIPT:

Sing a song and keep your head to the sky, ‘cause you’re all shining stars. This is the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast, one of many fine shows on the Pantheon Podcast Network, and I’m your host, Brad Page. Each episode, I pick one of my favorite songs and we dig into it together, looking and listening for all those magic moments, the little things that turn a good song into a great one. Don’t worry if you’re not a musician or musical expert, you don’t need to be. We’re just going to tune our ears into the arrangements, the performances and the production that make it a great song.

This episode we’re listening to one of the biggest, most successful acts in history. Call ‘em R&B, call ‘em funk, call ‘em Afro pop, jazz, soul…. any way you look at it, this band has an incredible catalog of music and a bunch of huge hits. We’re going to explore one of those hits right now: This is Earth, Wind And Fire with “Serpentine Fire”.

This is our second visit with Earth Wind And Fire. We covered the song “Shining Star” back on Episode 56– check that one out if you haven’t heard it yet. It’s one of my favorites. So let’s recap just a little of Earth Wind and Fire’s history here.

Maurice White was born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1941. For a while he played with Booker T in Memphis before he moved to Chicago to live with his mother and stepfather. He attended the Chicago Conservatory of Music, played drums around the scene, and worked as a session drummer at Chess Studios, where he played with many of the greats: Etta James, Chuck Berry, Junior Wells, Muddy Waters, just to name a few.

In 1969, he formed the Salty Peppers with Wade Flemings and Don Whitehead. Eventually he moved to LA and changed the name of the band to Earth Wind and Fire, based on his astrological sign. In 1970, his brother Verdine White joined the band as their bass player. Earth Wind and Fire released their first self-titled album in 1971. Their second album, “The Need of Love”, came out the same year, and a third album, “Last Days And Time”, was issued in 1972. That was the first album with vocalist Philip Bailey, who would share vocals with Maurice White and become a critical factor in the band.

“Head To The Sky” came out in 1973, and “Open Our Eyes”, their fifth album, in 1974. This album features “Mighty Mighty”, which was kind of their first big crossover hit.

In 1975, they released “That’s The Way of the World”, their 6th album. It was also the soundtrack to the film That’s The Way of the World, and the band appears in the movie. “Shining Star” is from this album, and it would become their first #1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. See our previously-mentioned Episode 56 for more details.

The title cut was also issued as a single.

Maurice White was a musical visionary, but he was more than that, too. He envisioned bringing people together spiritually through his music. He viewed their next album, the album that would become “Spirit”, as their most important album so far. He was also interested in showing a different vision of black masculinity than what you typically got from celebrities. He wanted to present the band as “sons of a royal and noble Africa”.

The album cover featured the band all dressed in white, eyes closed in meditative poses with three large white pyramids behind them. This was the first of many album covers that would feature eastern and Egyptian imagery.

He wanted to awaken spirituality among his audience. Not so much religion, but spirituality. His goal was to share his interests– mysticism, Buddhism, Egyptology. As Maurice said, “Our vibe was definitely afro-centric, but not a separatist one. It was about community, the family of man.”

Sadly, as they were working on the “Spirit” album, they lost a key member of their family. Charles Stepney had worked closely with the band on their last few albums as producer, arranger and contributing songwriter. He died on May 17, 1976 from a heart attack. He was 45 years old. He was a close friend of Maurice White and the whole band, really. The album would be in many ways a tribute to Stepney. “Spirit”, their 7th studio album was released in September 1976.

After the success of the “Spirit” album and the massive tour that followed, by now, Earth Wind and Fire were putting on an amazing stage show and they were a huge concert draw. But Maurice White was exhausted. He needed a break. He took the first vacation of his life, spending two months touring South America. He visited drum schools in Brazil and absorbed the sounds and rhythms of the various cultures. When he returned home, he brought these fresh ideas to the next Earth Wind and Fire album, which would be called “All In All”, their 8th album of all new material.

Now, you would think at that pace, eight albums plus a live album, all within six years, that they would have run out of steam. But many people consider “All In All” to be their best album.

“Serpentine Fire” is the song that opens the album, and what a way to kick it off. It was written by Maurice White, Verdine White and Reginald Sonny Burke. It was produced by Maurice White.

\Maurice has described the song as “profoundly odd, an idiosyncratic mixture of African music, tango and gospel blues, with an abstract lyric about Kundalini energy.” Kundalini is a form of divine feminine energy located at the base of the spine. When awakened, it leads to spiritual liberation. Kundalini is a Sanskrit word meaning “coiled, or coiled like a snake”.

Maurice White says “Serpentine Fire” is Earth Wind and Fire’s most ambitious single because it’s so musically abstract. The song begins with an intro played by the bass, keyboards and percussion, with the horns joining in after the first four measures. You can already hear that Latin feel in the percussion.

Let’s go back and listen to the keyboards because it’s a very dense mix. A lot going on. Sometimes it’s hard to pick out the individual parts. There are at least two keyboard parts, one on the left and one on the right. The one on the right has a phasing effect on it. From there, it’s going to break out into a supremely funky track.

Let’s break that down a bit. Like all good funk songs, at the heart of the groove is the bass guitar. Adding to this syncopation is both the percussion and the horn parts. So let’s listen to those.

Little further down in the mix are the keyboard parts.

And there is one guitar part in the left channel. Let’s hear all of that together again. Now for the first verse.

Let’s check out the vocals. This is Maurice White with an occasional harmony by Philip Bailey. The vocals are doubled with a decent amount of reverb on them.

Let’s continue with the rest of that verse. This is the chorus where Philip Bailey takes over. Philip was renowned for his falsetto, and the way it contrasted and complemented Maurice White’s vocals is one of the most magical things about Earth Wind and Fire.

At the end of the chorus is a short section where they bring in the gospel influence. You can see how they’re blending all kinds of elements together.

That brings us back to the main riff. I love that vocal bit at the end there.

We’l pick it back up for the next verse.

That groove is so great. I want to hear just a little of the bass, the horns and the percussion. We’ll keep a little of the guitar in there, too.

I want to hear more of Maurice White’s vocal track.

And I’d like to hear just the vocals on that part, too.

There’s kind of a big finish there this time around. They could have ended the song right there, but just when you think it’s done, they kick back in.

Notice how there’s tuned percussion.

And that brings us to the last chorus. The guitars and keyboards are going to make their way forward a bit in the mix here at the end. The guitars are still difficult to make out, but there are two guitar parts in there. That’s pretty crazy, right? And of course, there are still the two keyboard parts. And of course, that killer bass guitar part that I just got to hear it by itself one more time.

All right, let’s go back to the final mix. We get another round of the chorus vocals, then the horns take over as the song fades out.

“Serpentine Fire” by Earth Wind and Fire. The “All In All” album was released in November 1977. The album cover featured artwork by Shusei Nagaoka. Shusei didn’t speak English, and Maurice didn’t speak Japanese, but they met and Maurice was able to articulate his ideas by showing him books on Egyptian art and UFO’s. Nagaoka sketched out some ideas and a relationship was forged that would result in a whole string of album covers for Earth Wind and Fire. Nagaoka created a bunch of other album covers for ELO, Jefferson Starship, and Deep Purple, but my favorites of his are the covers he did for Earth Wind and Fire.

Thanks for being a part of this edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. You can find all of our previous episodes on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com, or just look for us in your favorite podcast app. We’ll be back in about two weeks with another new episode. Until then, check out some of the other great podcasts on the Pantheon Podcast Network.

It’d be great if you left a review wherever you listen to the show, and if you’d like to contact us, you can find us on Facebook, or send an email to lovethatsongpodcastmail.com.

If you’d like to support the show, the best thing you can do is to tell a friend about it, because your recommendation really does mean a lot. As always, remember to support the artists you love by buying their music. And thanks for listening to this episode on Earth wind and Fire with “Serpentine Fire”.

It’s never a recipe for making great art when you’re under pressure to deliver an album to a rival record label due to contractual obligations… though Jimi Hendrix was never satisfied with the result, the Band Of Gypsys album became a very influential album and remains a favorite among Jimi fans and guitar players of all stripes. On this episode, we journey back to New Years 1970 to explore “Message of Love” from this legendary album.

— Hey, I was just thinkin’… now would be as great time for you to check out the other Rock Podcasts on the Pantheon Podcasts network!

TRANSCRIPT:

Greetings to all, here on the third stone from the sun and beyond. This is the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast beaming across the cosmos on the Pantheon Podcast Network. I’m your host, Brad Page, and each episode of the show, I pick a song and we explore it together, listening to all the nuances that make it one of my favorite songs. You don’t need any musical skill, knowledge or experience here– just a love for music and a little curiosity.

Well, here we are at the start of a brand new year, and I was trying to think of an appropriate subject for a January 1^st episode. I thought, “we’ve talked about a lot of guitar players on this show…” I love guitar players. But I realized that, after over 140 shows, we’ve still never talked about one of the most important guitarists of all time. So let’s rectify that. It’s about time we talked about Jimi Hendrix.

Of course, Jimi Hendrix is a legend, with a legacy of some really important and influential records. It’d be tempting to pick a song like “Purple Haze” or “Voodoo Child”, “All Along The Watchtower”, or his version of “The Star Spangled Banner”. Those are all historically important tracks. But I wanted to do something different.

So, I chose a song from very late in his career when Jimi was at a turning point in his career– at a crossroads, to use a cliche. So, we’re going back to a New Year’s Eve over 50 years ago, when 1969 gave way to 1970, with Jimi Hendrix and the Band of Gypsys ringing in the new year at the Fillmore East, playing “Message Of Love”.

[Music]

Everybody knows that Jimi Hendrix is a legend, an icon. There are literally dozens of books written about him; there are documentaries. So I’m not going to go over a detailed history of Hendrix, but to understand how Jimi Hendrix ended up playing at the Fillmore East on New Year’s Eve, first we have to go back to his early years in New York City.

Jimi Hendrix was a working musician, paying his dues and playing as a sideman to people like the Isley Brothers and Little Richard. In 1965, he ended up as a guitarist in Curtis Knight’s band, playing cover songs on the New York and New Jersey circuit. Jimi eventually grew tired of that and formed his own band, Jimmy James and the Blue Flames.

It was during a stint playing in Greenwich Village, New York, when he was“discovered” by Chas Chandler, former bassist for The Animals, who was transitioning into being a manager. Chandler brought Jimi over to England, and they put together the Jimi Hendrix experience with bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Now here’s where things get messy. Back in ‘65, when he was playing with Curtis Knight, Jimmy had signed an exclusive recording contract with a guy named Ed Chaplin. Jimi had also signed a contract with producer Juggie Murray. But hey, look, Jimi was a struggling musician, just trying to find some success– any success. He was a guitar player, not a lawyer, and he was naive. He’d sign anything if he thought it could help him at the time.

But now, with the Jimi Hendrix Experience having hit records on the Warner Brothers label, Ed Chaplin came a calling in 1967 with his contract from two years earlier, and he sued.

Hendrix had made some recordings with Curtis Knight back in ‘65. Those records are not very good, but Chaplin licensed them to Capitol Records, who then released two albums worth of that stuff. In fact, at one point, you had the legit Warner Brothers records competing against the Capitol stuff at the same time.

Here’s a song from the Curtis Knight sessions; it’s an instrumental called “Knock Yourself Out”, which Jimi got a co-writing credit on.

{music]

Eventually, a settlement was arranged with an agreement that Ed Chaplin and Capitol Records would get the rights to one Jimi Hendrix album. Hendrix had just finished recording “Electric Ladyland”, which was a double album, so it was agreed that the next album would be given to Capitol.

But things in the Hendrix camp were tough. First, Chas Chandler had left the fold, and not long after, Noel Redding quit. Jimi brought in his old army buddy, Billy Cox, to play bass. Then Jimi rounded up a bunch more musicians, adding additional percussionists and a second guitar player. He called the band “Gypsy Sun and Rainbows”, and this was the band that played at Woodstock.

[Music]

But a month later, Jimmy broke up that band. It just wasn’t working for him.

Meanwhile, the pressure is on. He still owes one album to Capitol, and Jimi didn’t even have a band. So, Jimi, Billy Cox, and drummer-vocalist Buddy Miles put together a band. They made a deal with promoter Bill Graham to play four shows at the Fillmore East in New York: two shows on New Year’s Eve, and two shows on New Year’s Day, 1970. All four shows would be recorded, and they would release the best tracks as a single live album to fulfill the Capitol Records contract.

Before the show, Jimi, Buddy and Billy, calling themselves “Band of Gypsys”, worked up a set consisting mostly of new material, including “Machine Gun”, one of Jimi’s most incredible guitar performances.

Both Buddy and Billy were veterans of R&B bands, and they brought a funkier, soulful groove to the songs that the Jimi Hendrix Experience just never had. Buddy was also a great singer, too. His lead vocals are featured on two songs on the “Band of Gypsys” album. Buddy introduces this track on the record.

[Music]

The song starts off with a chromatically ascending riff before kicking off into the main riff of the song.

[Music]

Let’s just hear Jimi’s guitar on that riff.

[Music]

Behind that, Billy Cox is playing a pretty busy bass part over a pretty simple drumbeat, laid down by Buddy Miles. Let’s hear their parts.

[Music]

They only play through that riff twice before starting the first verse, which is a variation on the main riff, simplified a bit to leave room for the vocals.

[Music]

I really like the backing vocals there. One of the things about Jimi’s previous band, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, was that they didn’t have a strong vocalist in the band to back up Jimi. Buddy Miles was a powerhouse singer, and he adds a lot. And with Billy Cox chipping in, these backing vocals were kind of a whole new sound for Jimi.

[Music]

After a few lines of the verse, we get a new short riff with Jimi and Billy playing the same part together mostly. And that brings us back to the verse riff.

[Music]

And that brings us to another new riff. This one’s a little more rapid fire, with Jimi and Billy doubling the part, and Buddy scat singing the riff with them.

[Music]

Now here we have a somewhat quieter or gentler part. Jimi is playing some of those chords he was famous for; as much as he’s thought of as an incredible lead guitarist– and he was– he was also a killer rhythm player.

[Music]

Jimi’s rhythm guitar playing is as identifiable as his lead playing. Let’s hear this part again without the vocals, so that we can hear a little more of his guitar.

[Music]

The verse riff, the backing vocals come back in, but this time, Jimi’s just going to vamp a bit around the riff. At this point, Jimi is going to crank up the volume and play a solo, and I think now is as good a time as any to talk about Jimi’s guitar sound. Though he played other guitars, Jimi was primarily associated with the Fender Stratocaster. As a left-handed player, he would take a right-handed Strat, flip it upside-down and restring it, and that’s what he was playing this night with the Band Of Gypsys.

Now, playing the guitar upside-down like that meant that things like the volume & tone controls and the vibrato arm were in a different position than they would be if you were playing it normally. And Jimi was able to take advantage of that, particularly with the vibrato or whammy bar.

Jimi also pretty consistently used Marshall amplifiers, I think typically Super 100’s, but don’t quote me on that. But that was the standard beginning and end of his signal chain: a Fender Strat into a Marshall amp. But what went between his amp and guitar? That’s another story that changed frequently.

Jimi was always looking for new sounds, and he would explore any new effects gadget that came his way. Guitar effects pedals were still a relatively new thing in the late 60’s. Jimi was friends with a guy named Roger Mayer, an electrical engineer who had worked for the British Navy. He started building effects devices for guitars, like fuzz pedals, and one of the earliest units he built was the Octavia, which takes the input signal from the guitar and generates that sound one octave higher, then mixes it back in with the original guitar sound, and adds distortion or fuzz. Like most guitar pedals, it would sit on the floor between your guitar and amp, with a button you’d press with your foot to turn it on and off.

Jimi first used the Octavia on the solo for “Purple Haze” in 1967. Roger Mayer would continue to tweak and modify the Octavia for Hendrix. And Jimi was using one of those later versions for this Band Of Gypsys show.

You can hear the Octavia most notably on the song “Who Knows” from this show. Jimi was also using a fuzz pedal built by Roger Mayer. It was either a Fuzz Face or an Axis Fuzz, depending on what you read. He had two other effects pedals on stage this night: a Vox wah-wah pedal, which you can hear on the song “Changes”:

[Music]

And he was using a Univibe, a new and pretty innovative pedal for its time. It’s a little tough to explain what a Univibe actually sounds like– it’s a cross between phasing, a chorus sound, and vibrato, but you can hear it in action on the song “Machine Gun”.

[Music]

Now, there is one other thing to take into account regarding Jimi’s guitar sound, and that’s the order in which the effects are plugged into each other. Believe it or not, it makes a big difference in the sound. For example, a wah-wah pedal plugged into a fuzz pedal sounds significantly different than the other way around, a fuzz pedal plugged into a wah. This can lead to endless rounds of debate and conjecture, but luckily, we have some photographs from this show that pretty clearly show the sequence of his pedals that night:

His guitar is plugged into a Vox wah-wah pedal, which is plugged into the Octavia, which is plugged into the Fuzz Face, that’s plugged into the Univibe, and then that is finally plugged into his Marshall amplifier. Wah pedal, Octavia, Fuzz pedal, Univibe.

Okay, so back to “Message Of Love”. At this point, the fuzz is really going to kick in, and Jimi’s going to go for his first solo.

[Music]

And now, Jimi’s going to step on that wah-wah pedal.

[Music]

Now Jimi’s gonna hit a harmonic and quickly bend it down with the whammy bar, then turn off the wah pedal for the rest of the solo.

[Music]

You can hear them slow the tempo down there.

[Music]

The band is going to break, and then Jimi is going to do a little scat singing, this time singing along to his guitar part.

[Music]

They’re gonna build it back up here. Jimi and Buddy are gonna add some vocals.

[Music]

It sounds a little rough coming back into the riff there. I can’t imagine they had more than a handful of rehearsals before these shows, so there’s bound to be some rough spots. But that’s what makes this a truly great live album. There’s a real “edge of your seat” energy to this record. They didn’t go back and fix up every mistake– this is how it really went down that night, New Year’s 1975.

Jimmy’s gonna cut loose with the second solo. Let’s focus in on Jimmy’s guitar.

[Music]

They bring back that chromatic climb from the beginning of the song to wrap it all up. Jimi’s just messing around with the whammy bar and some feedback.

[Music]

The Band of Gypsys – “Message Of Love”

The song has also been credited as “Message To Love”, but on all the versions of “Band of Gypsys” that I have, it’s referred to as “Message Of Love”. So that’s what I’m sticking with.

The “Band of Gypsys” album was commercially very successful. Critics didn’t necessarily love it, and Hendrix himself was never satisfied with it; he felt it was rushed and it didn’t sound great, and if it wasn’t for the contractual obligations, he wouldn’t have released it. Not that it mattered. By the time the album was released, the band had already broken up.

But the album has gone on to be very influential, paving the way for future funk rock acts. And it was an important touchstone, particularly for black artists making their mark in the rock world, like Living Color and Lenny Kravitz. And it remains one of my favorite Jimi Hendrix records, and just favorite guitar records in general.

Thanks for joining me for this musical journey on the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. As always, I’ll be back in about two weeks with another new episode. Until then, get your fix of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast by listening to any of our previous shows on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com, or find us on your favorite podcast app.

You can keep in touch with us on Facebook, just look for the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast to find our page. And please support the show by sharing it with your friends and just telling somebody about it.

On behalf of the Pantheon Network of podcasts, I gently remind you to support the artists that you love by buying their music, and I’ll see you back here next time. Thanks for listening to this episode on Jimi Hendrix and the Band of Gypsys. Happy New Year, everyone.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
Jimi Hendrix
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimi_Hendrix

Band of Gypsys
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Band_of_Gypsys

Message of Love
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Message_of_Love

Fillmore East
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fillmore_East

Fender Stratocaster
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fender_Stratocaster

Marshall amplifier
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Amplification

Octavia pedal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octavia_(effect)

Fuzz Face
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzz_Face

Univibe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Univibe

Wah-wah pedal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wah-wah_pedal

Billy Cox
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Cox

Buddy Miles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddy_Miles

Podcast

The Night That Live Music Saved A City

April 1, 2022
Tagged as: Funk, James Brown, Live Music, Martin Luther King Jr, R&B, Soul

Click here to play the episode

After after two years of COVID-19 shutdowns & false starts, live music is beginning to return. Let’s celebrate the power & importance of live music by looking back at a critical moment in history:

April 5, 1968: Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated the day before. America was on edge and riots were breaking out in cities across the country. But the city of Boston, MA held it together. Why? Because the Godfather Of Soul– James Brown— was in town.

(Above Photo: Thomas Atkins (left) and Kevin White (right) speak with James Brown at the Boston Garden, April 5, 1968. It was one day after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Atkins, Brown and White are credited with keeping the city quiet in the aftermath.)

— This show is one of many great music-related podcasts on the Pantheon network. You should check them out! And remember to follow this show, so you never miss an episode.

Podcast

Sugar Pie DeSanto – “In The Basement (Pt. 1)”

May 1, 2021
Tagged as: 1960's, Chess, Etta James, Funk, R&B, Soul, Sugar Pie DeSanto

Click here to play the episode

Sugar Pie DeSanto (born Umpeylia Marsema Balinton) was a ton of dynamite in a tiny 4′ 11″ frame… and still is, at the time of this recording. Let’s have a listen to this super-fun classic track, recorded with the great Etta James in 1966.

TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome to the party, friends! This is the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast, coming to you on the Pantheon Podcast Network. I’m your Master of Ceremonies, Brad Page, and on this episode we’re tossing out all the pretensions and going to the place where we can dance to any music we choose– “In The Basement” with Sugar Pie DeSanto

Umpeylia Marsema Balinton was born in Brooklyn New York in 1935, to a Filipino father and an African-American mother. Her mom had been a concert pianist, so she had music in her blood. Her family moved to San Francisco when she was four. She was close friends with Jamesetta Hawkins, who was discovered by Johnny Otis and renamed Etta James. Umpeylia won a number of talent contests in San Francisco and LA, and eventually Johnny Otis turned his sights to her, signing her in 1955 and changing her name to Sugar Pie DeSanto.

Sugar Pie stood only 4 feet 11 inches tall, but she packed an explosive amount of talent in that small frame. She had a giant voice and boundless energy, doing backflips on stage. Her first hit came in 1960 with “I Want To Know”, which reached number 4 on Billboard’s R&B chart.

[Music]

Sugar Pie moved to Chicago and signed with Chess Records, where she recorded more singles. Her biggest hit with Chess was a track called “Soulful Dress” in 1964.

[Music]

In 1966, she reunited with her friend Etta James for a duet called “Do I Make Myself Clear”:

[Music]

After the success of that single, Sugar Pie and Etta James went back into the studio in ’66 to cut another song together: “In The Basement”.

“In The Basement” didn’t turn out to be a big hit, but I think it’s one of the all-time great dance party songs– right up there with “Dancing In The Street”. “In The Basement” was written and produced by Billy Davis, Raynard Miner and Carl Smith. The song kicks off with a snare drum hit, then a classic bass guitar riff, doubled on the piano:

[Music]

You can tell the party’s already started with the crowd noise in the background. After two bars of the intro riff, there’s a short one-beat pause then the intro riff transitions into the main riff. It is a bit of a different riff, and that’s where the guitar joins in.

[Music]

This is where the first verse comes in, and to set the stage, here’s what Etta James said about the recording of this track:

“I flew up to Chicago where I recorded with my old friend from San Francisco, nutty wild-ass Sugar Pie DeSanto. I dug singing “Into The Basement”, a song that took us back to when we were kids; cutting up, smearing on lipstick, kissing on boys, being bad gang girls with our homemade tattoos and floppy jeans. With happy voices chattering in the background, the record is an all-night-long party, with funky music blaring.”

That pretty much says it all. Here’s the first verse:

[Music]

“Where can you go when the money gets low? In the basement.” Kids with no money, no transportation, too young for the clubs… what do you do? You get together in a friend’s basement where you can turn up the music and have a space of your own.

Now, granted, we were suburban white kids, far from the inner city where I grew up, but we did basically the same thing; hanging out in the basement, playing tunes. A couple times a year, we’d set up our guitars and drums in a friend’s basement and play a show for a dozen of our closest friends. Those moments of escape, freedom and promise… pretty universal experience for most American teenagers, I think.

"Where can you dance to any music you choose, 
you got the comforts of home and a nightclub, too.  
There's no cover charge or fee, 
and the food and drinks are free, 
down in the basement."

That’s the second verse.

[Music]

I love the scream and the backing vocals here.

Let’s bring up the vocals on this last verse

[Music]

“In The Basement” by Sugar Pie DeSanto and Etta James.

Sugar Pie, like so many artists, never made it to the big-time commercially. She’s had to eke out a career over 50 years now, but she kept on going. In 2008, she received the Pioneer Award by the Rhythm And Blues Foundation. At the ceremony, she performed “I Want To Know”, her first hit. And in the middle of the song, she got down on the floor and did a backward somersault.

At the time of this recording, Sugar Pie DeSanto is 85 years old, still going strong. She’s overcome a lot in her life: drugs, alcohol, and tragedy– she was married five times, twice to the same man, Jesse Davis, who died in a fire at their apartment in 2006. Sugar Pie said “He saved my life, but he couldn’t save his own”.

If you’d like to hear more of Sugar Pie DeSanto, there’s a great compilation CD called “Go Go Power: The Complete Chess Singles” that I highly recommend.

Thank you for being a part of this episode. The “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast will be back again soon! Find us on Facebook, where you can write a review or leave a comment; you can find all of our previous episodes on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com.

This show is part of the Pantheon Network of podcasts, where you’ll find discussions and conversations on all the great bands and artists. Thanks again for listening, and let’s keep the party going with “In The Basement” by Sugar Pie de Santo.

Podcast

The Albums That Made Us – with Special Guest Eric Miller

April 1, 2021
Tagged as: Albums That Made Us, Eric Miller, Funk, Living Color, Sly Stone, Soul

Click here to play the episode

Here’s the first episode of a new series that we’ll be exploring occasionally here on the “I’m In Love With That Song” Podcast. I’m always interested to hear about music that made a big impact on other people’s lives; in this series, I’m inviting some fellow podcasters and friends in the music industry to discuss an album that shaped their lives in some way.

For this first episode, Podcaster Extraordinaire Eric Miller joins us to talk about Living Color’s “Vivid”. And I discuss one of my influential albums, “Anthology” by Sly & The Family Stone. Hope you enjoy the conversation!

Podcast

Ohio Players – “Fire”

March 15, 2021
Tagged as: 1970's, Funk, Ohio Players, R&B, Soul

Click here to play the episode

The Ohio Players paid their dues for 15 years before their first #1 Top 100 hit, but by then, they were on fire (pun intended). Built on an incessant groove that won’t quit, they brought heavy funk to the top of the pop charts. On this episode, we take a look at all the elements that make up this funky classic.

– This show is one of many great podcasts on the Pantheon Podcasts network. Check ’em all out!

Podcast

Merry Clayton – “Country Road”

January 2, 2021
Tagged as: 1970's, Funk, James Taylor, Merry Clayton, R&B, Rolling Stones, Soul

Click here to play the episode

Merry Clayton never had a big hit, but her voice can be heard in dozens of songs you know (we’ve listened to one of them here before– see episode #42). One of the legendary background singers profiled in the documentary 20 Feet From Stardom, most of her solo work is largely unknown– which is a shame, because there’s some great music on those albums. Take this example from her first album, Gimme Shelter. Merry takes this James Taylor classic to a whole new place, one of my favorite cover songs of all time.

— This show is just one of many great podcasts on the Pantheon network–THE home for music podcasts!

Podcast

Rare Earth – “I Just Want To Celebrate”

November 6, 2020
Tagged as: 1970's, Classic Rock, Funk, Motown, Rare Earth, Soul

Click here to play the episode

Rare Earth’s sound was equal parts funky soul and straight-up rock. For decades, when there’s cause for celebration, folks have been crankin’ up this chunk of funk rock. Let’s take a closer look at how Rare Earth carved their place in history with this track.

— This show is one of many great music-related podcasts on the Pantheon network. You should check them out! And don’t forget to subscribe to the show — that way, you’ll never miss an episode, they’ll be delivered right to you.

1 2 »

Tag: Funk

75 Years of Bass with special guest Joe Branton

The O’Jays – “For The Love Of Money”

Earth, Wind & Fire – “Serpentine Fire”

Jimi Hendrix/Band Of Gypsys – “Message Of Love”

The Night That Live Music Saved A City

Sugar Pie DeSanto – “In The Basement (Pt. 1)”

The Albums That Made Us – with Special Guest Eric Miller

Ohio Players – “Fire”

Merry Clayton – “Country Road”

Rare Earth – “I Just Want To Celebrate”