Legendary bass player Leland Sklar plays a bass cover of Stratus, a song from Billy Cobham’s early 70s solo album, Spectrum. He played on the original recording so I don’t know if bass cover is the right word.
I’d heard Sklar’s name but this is the first time I’ve consciously listened to him. But I know this bass line! I didn’t realize Massive Attack had sampled it.
He talks about opening for Mahavishnu Orchestra, what recording this album was like, and why the simplicity of this bass line is what’s important. I can’t imagine playing this pattern at this speed for 6-7 minutes.
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I can’t imagine playing that for 6-7 minutes either, even though my band covered this song at a live gig once! That bass riff is like a mantra — you have to fully lock into it and empty your brain of everything but. My fingers would start cramping up after a minute or two. Then, mercifully, the refrain’s hook finally comes, but is all too quickly over and you’re right back into it! When we played it, I had to change it up a bit during the extended guitar and keyboard solos and we cut the song shorter by segueing into something else (“Cissy Strut,” I think), or else I would have suffered permanent carpal tunnel injury! It amazes me that he says that they recorded the Spectrum album live in the studio without doing any punch-ins. Wow, just wow! Cool anecdote he told about Billy playing a prototype of Robert Moog’s synth drums — I always thought that was Jan Hammer using a sequencer.
Thanks for posting this and introducing me to Leland Sklar’s vlogging. He’s got great stories to tell from his incredible recording career — the King of soft-rock bass!
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I had never heard of him until I bought a bass and started paying more attention to bassists! I think I found him through the No Treble blog.
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Do you know about Carol Kaye?
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Yep. And Jamerson and Paladino.
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