Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours’ is a classic Stevie Wonder track, recorded on the Motown label back in 1970. It reached the top spot on the US R&B chart when released and continues to be enormously popular. This track features Motown bassist Bob Babbitt, who worked alongside James Jamerson at the label. Bob’s bassline on […]

‘Never Before’ is the fourth track from Deep Purple’s sixth studio album Machine Head, which was released in March 1972. It was the band’s most successful album and is regarded as one of the key albums in the development of hard rock/metal. Seeking to capture on record their powerful live sound, the band initially planned […]

’Hard to Handle’ is one of soul legend Otis Redding’s best-known works and was originally featured on the album The Immortal Otis Redding, the first to be released following his death in a plane crash in 1967. It was famously covered by The Black Crowes in 1990 and was also featured heavily in the movie […]

This great song appeared on Emergency on Planet Earth, the band’s debut album, and the world’s first introduction to the bass work of a young Stuart Zender. This is one of the more complex basslines on the album: it’s busy, heavily syncopated, and there are many variations on the main themes. In short, there’s a […]

‘Easy’ is the fifth track from Nik Kershaw’s second album, The Riddle, which was released in November 1984. This song is notable amongst bass players as it features Level 42 bassist Mark King. King plays a powerful slap groove throughout the majority of the track, switching to the fingerstyle technique for the tricky melody that […]

‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine’ was written by songwriters Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong in 1966 and was recorded by several artists signed to Berry Gordy’s Motown label. The first version of the song was recorded by The Miracles, although it was rejected for release by Gordy, later appearing on their 1968 album Special […]

The eighties were an exciting and varied time musically and were notable for the rise of synthesisers and drum machines in popular music. Although the decade is often associated with flamboyant haircuts, New Romantic attire and lots of makeup, many great bassists were also able to make an impression during this time. Among them were […]

This song was written and recorded by Jocelyn Brown back in 1984 and has since become a disco/funk classic. It’s not clear who played bass on the original recording, but whoever it was, they did an amazing job: this song is well-loved by bass players all over the world thanks to an effective – and […]

This song was recorded by James Taylor back in 1975 for his Gorilla album. A cover of the Marvin Gaye hit, Taylor’s version features a simple but highly effective bass part from session legend Leland Sklar. Sklar, who has spent much of his career holding down the low end for Taylor (and many others), performed […]

This course builds on everything that was covered back in the Intermediate Plectrum course. The sixteenth note-based lines that are coverd here are complex and will require a thorough mastery of the concepts covered in the earlier courses. As you work through this material, you might find the following courses useful (all included in the […]