How many popular songs out there are written with multiple bass parts?
What made me think of this was a recent listen to Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition”. I really focused in on the bass parts and said to myself “That’s either the world’s best bass player, or that’s two basses.”
After a little research, it turns out that “Superstition” was actually performed with two clavinets rather than bass guitars. I’m not a musician, so I’m not sure if use of a clavinet counts towards covering a song’s bass part – though it sure sounded that way to me. Seems to me an (electric) bassist could crudely approximate the sounds of a clavinet by sticking with the higher-pitched strings … or maybe by tuning the bass in an unusual fashion … and maybe the picking or the pick would have to be modified in some way.
Anyway, I’m getting a bit off track here. The question is stated in the OP’s title – are there many examples in rock/pop/soul music of songs with two (or more) distinct bass parts? Bonus points if the parts are actually played by two bassists (simultaneously?) in the studio (or live), rather than by one bassist playing two tracks at separate times, and then mixing them together later.
There is a great group called Dianogah, which uses only two bass players and a drummer. There stuff is very cool, if you like bass and alternative music.
On Victor Wooten’s lates CD, Soul Circus, there is a song called “Bass Tribute,” which is a pretty funky song all about the great bassists of modern music. Besides Victor on the bass, it features four other bass players for a total of five. It is skillfully done.
On most of his other solo efforts (which are, IMHO, well worth acquiring), he has songs on which he has several multitracked bass parts. His live concerts also feature one or two additional bassists on many songs.
"Hungry" by Paul Revere and the Raiders has 3 bass parts in it. It uses a standard bass, a short-necked bass (sometimes called an octave bass) and a bass through distortion (sometimes called a fuzz-bass). Still, this was strictly for the studio recording.
How about “Good Vibrations” by the Beach Boys? That beginning sounds as if there are 2 bass parts playing. One bass seems an octave higher than the other.
If we count other instruments playing the bass notes, there’s always Howard Johnson’s Gravity, which used 5-7 tubas in addition to the bass guitar.
Johnson is, of course, rock’s greatest tuba player (not that there’s much competition) and a mainstay of the early Saturday Night Live band, where Gravity appeared once as a musical guest.
Reminds me of Spinal Tap after Nigel quits the band, and they’re trying to figure out how to do their songs. At one point David asks Viv (keyboardist) if he could cover a bass part, to which Viv replies, “sure… I’ve got two hands.”
As a keys player myself, that always makes me grin.
