Suggested Listening: Rockabilly Double Bass

Video Transcript

"Hi! It’s Ken Steiner. Right now I’ve finished up with my bass playing, let’s talk a little about what you might want to listen to or watch if you want to continue slap bass playing. I’ve already mentioned Bill Black playing with Elvis, there’s also Dorsey Barnett playing with Johnny Barnett’s Rock N Roll Trios quiet a landmark in the genre. I happen to like a fellow who’s around right now a fellow by the name of Wayne Hancock who’s a very good writer and rockabilly singer, he uses different bass players one particular fellow named Kevin Smith who was a fabulous slap player, his records are available and what I really like about them they’re we’ll produced and there’s no drummer so you can really hear the slap bass playing very clearly it’s very well engineered, you can really hear what these guys are doing. In blue’s one of the best known slap players is the Great Willy Dickson, you can hear him on many, many records, his slap playing isn’t that pronounced but he has their videos out I think they’re called the American Folk Festival of Blues, you can see him play and he’s a very imposing figure and he plays great, he’s somebody to listen to, a very good album of his is called, Willy Dickson and The Big Three Trio, you hear a lot his slapping on those sides very recommended. In jazz the real sort of leader or the hot player is the great Milt Hinton who started playing with Cab Calloway in 1930’s, he probably on more records than any other bass player in history but unfortunately you don’t hear that much of his slapping he was playing mostly jazz technique but when he slapped he was something to behold, you can hear a slapping I believe on a Branford Marsalis album called Trio Jeepy, he and Branford played a duet of an old standup called Three Little Words and he’s pulled out his slap technique and it’s really something."