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The Legendary Troll King
This Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee was ranked No. 1 in Rolling Stone’s 50 Greatest Bassists of All Time and honored by the Grammys with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004. Today we are remembering James Jamerson of the legendary Funk Brothers on what would’ve been his 86th birthday.
In 1959, on the day James Jamerson first walked into Berry Gordy Jr.’s basement recording studio on Detroit’s West Grand Boulevard, the electric bass was still an infant. Leo Fender’s 1951 brainchild had yet to find an identity - a situation that ended with the first note Jamerson played on a Motown record. In one momentous and soulful trifecta, the instrument found its voice, a fledgling record company discovered its heartbeat, and a generation took a bold step toward finding its groove.
As a core member of Motown’s legendary Funk Brothers studio band, Jamerson spent the next fourteen years cranking out a seemingly endless conveyor belt of pop and R&B masterpieces. “Bernadette,” “Nowhere to Run,” “I Heard It Through The Grapevine,” “You Keep Me Hanging On,” “My Girl” and “I Was Made to Love Her” were driven by bass lines with previously unheard of levels of complexity, power, invention and emotion, which effortlessly flowed through Jamerson’s powerful bear-claw hands and the ’62 Fender Precision bass he affectionately dubbed “the Funk Machine.” Anytime he locked in with the Funk Brothers, and in particular with his ultimate soulmate, drummer Benny Benjamin, it was all over. The world’s dance floors didn’t stand a chance.
Music had always come easily to Jamerson, but life, on the other hand, did not. A tormented genius with an explosive temper and a Jekyll and Hyde personality, Jamerson’s battle with internal demons and alcoholism was reflected in his music. A spiritual, almost mystical man at times and a street brawler at others, Jamerson spoke of finding musical inspiration from sources as diverse as “a flower swaying in the wind” to “watching the way a woman’s behind moved when she walked.”
Regardless of the tempest seething inside him, he was the baddest bassist on the planet, and he knew it. Around the world, aspiring bass players were alternately inspired and terrified by his four-string exploits. Other labels’ producers consistently asked their session bassists to “play like that guy from Motown.” He was the king. And then it all abruptly ended, when in 1972 Motown moved to Los Angeles. Following the company to the West Coast, Jamerson spent the last ten years of his life trying to recapture the glory he had experienced in Detroit. But as much as he tried, the scene was foreign to him, and without the emotional support of Hitsville’s Funk Brothers, Jamerson faltered. Alcoholism and emotional problems diminished his talents, eventually ending his life in 1983.
At Jamerson’s funeral, Stevie Wonder eulogized
how James had changed the fabric of his and all of our lives. Certainly, the legendary bassist’s imprint has been indelibly etched onto our popular culture: Every time you’ve ever partied to a Motown record, that seismic event making your feet move was James Jamerson’s bass. When backseat Romeos across America made their best moves to the soundtrack of Smokey’s silky smooth voice crooning through the dashboard speaker, Jamerson was right there. And as G.I.s shivered with fear in some God-forsaken Southeast Asia foxhole and found a few moments of solace in Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” Jamerson was there too.
By the time his Motown tenure ended, Jamerson had played on a staggering total of fifty-six Number One R&B hits and twenty-three Number One pop hits. Additionally, thousands of chart-toppers have come from artists whose bassists have copied him. It wasn’t thievery or plagiarism - it wasn’t even homage. Those players were just following a glorious tradition, using the vocabulary of the instrument pioneered by the brilliant James Jamerson.
Source: Rock & Roll Hall of Fame essay by Allan “Dr. Licks” Slutsky
Rest easy on your birthday, Mr. Jamerson. Thanks for the music.
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