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Something About the Beatles
315: Beatles Bass - An Appreciation with Arion Salazar and Rob Collier
01:26:40
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- [00:02]
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- [01:00]
Orion Salazar
We find Vecna. We end this once and for all.
- [01:03]
Podcast Host
Together on December 25th.
- [01:06]
Orion Salazar
We have a plan. It's a bit insane.
- [01:08]
Rob Collier
Everyone in he knows where we are. Watch out.
- [01:12]
Podcast Host
Get ready for one last adventure.
- [01:15]
Rob Collier
We stay true to ourselves, stay true to our friends.
- [01:19]
Podcast Host
No matter the cost.
- [01:22]
Orion Salazar
Found you.
- [01:24]
Podcast Host
Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 2 begins December 25th only on Netflix.
- [01:30]
Rob Collier
In a sense to me you've always. You kind of play bass like a frustrated guitar player. It's sort of an inverted kind of genius. Did I mean, was the bass kind of forced on you when your bass player died?
- [01:41]
Paul McCartney (Interviewee)
No, it was before that. It was started off. I mean the whole history is. My dad bought me a trumpet and I tried to play trumpet and learned the saints and. And a couple of things but my lip was going funny and I realised I wouldn't be able to sing while I was playing a trumpet. I liked singing so I traded that in for a guitar which was a right handed one. I couldn't work out how I couldn't play it. And I eventually realized I had to turn it the right way.
- [02:05]
Rob Collier
You and Jimi Hendrix?
- [02:06]
Orion Salazar
Yeah.
- [02:06]
Paul McCartney (Interviewee)
So I turned it like the right way and amazingly upon. Amazing. It felt good, you know and I could actually. I was strumming with the right hand now the correct hand and I could get a lot more feel on it. And I traded. I got a guitar to go out to Hamburg which is called a Rossetti Lucky seven. Which is like one of the worst ever made. It was just a hunk of plywood with a pickup on it, strings two.
- [02:30]
Orion Salazar
Feet off the board.
- [02:31]
Paul McCartney (Interviewee)
Yeah, it was the worst action going, you know. But it looked good and that was the whole thing then. So I got to Hamburg and played for a while just as a guitar player and just played guitar. We used to have three guitars. It was Just John, me and George and we used to say to people, we don't need a drummer. The rhythms in the guitars, man, when they used to book us, you know, they say, I haven't got a drummer. The rhythm's in the guitar. So we, we went there and we had a drummer then. And then we had Stu on bass. Stu decided he wanted to stay in Hamburg. And my guitar by that time had fallen apart. It eventually got smashed, you know, in a pre Townsend fury one night. And I used to sort of just put piece it together and then plug it in with like, not plug it in, rather just play it unplugged in. And then I got put up. It eventually just fell apart. I just couldn't. There's no way I could even pretend to use it anymore. So I turned to the piano because that was the only instrument left for me. So I had a little spell of just playing piano, which time I kind of learned quite a little bit, you know, learned my way a little bit around piano. And then eventually Stuart, who was our bass player, was going to stay in Hamburg and so there was. There was a kind of changeover and he like handed over to me and he lent me his bass and I had to play that upside down because he didn't want the strings turned over and messed around too much. So I was playing bass upside down. It's a real cockeyed way. I mean, you played the strings upside down. I just played guitar boogie.
- [04:00]
Rob Collier
Like in a.
- [04:00]
Paul McCartney (Interviewee)
In a mirror. Yeah, I just played coming this way instead of going down. So that was a kind of crazy time. But, you know, I managed that. And then eventually I got my own bass and I was kind of in on bass, so I was always like a frustrated guitarist.
- [04:17]
Orion Salazar
At that point, Paul was still playing.
- [04:18]
Paul McCartney (Interviewee)
A guitar and remember saying, well, one of us is going to be the bass player.
- [04:24]
Orion Salazar
I remember saying, and it's not me.
- [04:26]
Paul McCartney (Interviewee)
I'm not doing it. And John said, I'm not doing it either.
- [04:29]
Rob Collier
She went for it.
- [04:43]
Podcast Narrator
Hello and welcome to episode 315 of Something about the Beatles Podcast. And this is one that is a outgrowth of the November 2025 Everything Fab Four conference in Asbury Park, New Jersey. And inasmuch as I connected personally with a guy who's been on my radar for a while, Rob Collier, whose niche in Beatle world is Beatle bass lines. He has been transcribing all of the Beatle bass lines from the beginning, starting with Love Me do is, I think about two thirds of the way through the process now, but he's been writing about Beatle bass lines, Paul McCartney specifically, and you can find his work online@bassmusicianmagazine.com you can also follow his YouTube channel, Beatles Basslines. He is also on Instagram and His website is beatlesbasselines.com as well. He is probably the foremost person to any great depth who have analyzed and examined what's going on precisely with the bass on Beatles records. Now, Paul McCartney just finished his Got Back tour in my hometown. We know about him as a singer, as a songwriter, producer, everything else he's done. And I don't think we've really taken a look at the baselines, not certainly to the lengths that we're going to today. But back in 2017 was the first time I had the co host, as it were, of this show on and that's Orion Salazar. You may know him as a musician who played with Third Eye Blind and Fungo Mongo before that, Bay Area based originally and super Beatles guy that through this show I was able to connect with just one more great thing in Beetle World that I'm able to meet these fabulous people that you can just geek out with about all kinds of things. Anyway, episode 123 Orion when he was in town we got together and cut a show ostensibly talk about Paul and Bass, but I recall we covered a lot of other ground too about other stuff. But this is where we connect with a guy who's actually studied it fairly full time and to great depth. Mr. Collier. And so I got Orion along to serve bass glass, color commentary. Because I am not a bassist myself, I've entertained the idea of taking it up someday just to at least get a basic facility on it. He's the real deal. It's played all over the world in stadiums. He's lived the life as a professional musician, bassist and Beatle fan. So really the show is an appreciation of Paul McCartney as a bassist, as.
- [07:22]
Podcast Host
An innovator, as one of the most.
- [07:24]
Podcast Narrator
Influential people to ever take up the instrument. And I'm always brought back to that John Lennon quote in The Playboy interview 1980, where he says Paul's an egomaniac about everything but his bass playing, which.
- [07:35]
Podcast Host
He'S a bit coy about, but that.
- [07:37]
Podcast Narrator
Everybody current in the music scene as of 1980 when he spoke these words he said was basically ripping off the Paul's Beatle period. It's a pretty fine period to rip off as far as we're concerned. Anyway, this conversation is not in great depth in musicology stuff, although Rob does plenty of that you will see that in his articles. I wanted to keep it a bit more generalized for the casual listener who just wants to know why Paul was so exceptional as a bassist. And so that's what we set out to do and that's what we're doing. An overview and appreciation of Beatles Bass with Rob Collier and Orion Salazar given.
- [08:15]
Podcast Host
That Paul McCartney just finished his Got Back tour and I don't know if anybody saw it, spect a lot of you saw it more than once, at least from the early 2000s on. It seems on stage he's been playing his Hoffner bass. It's a visually pleasing thing. It's iconic and all that. But in his shows he'd done circa 8990, he was playing a different instrument that seemed a lot more modern, at least suitable for the kind of material he was crafting in the studio at that time. Granted, he's 83 years old. You maybe want to play a light instrument on stage, not have this thing on your back for three hours.
- [08:52]
Paul McCartney (Interviewee)
Does your Rickenbacker is that much better? I like this one.
- [08:57]
Podcast Host
It's.
- [08:57]
Paul McCartney (Interviewee)
Loved it. Two ounces. No.
- [09:01]
Podcast Host
Do you see any reason why he would be doing that beyond purely presentation? That looks cool and people expect it.
- [09:08]
Rob Collier
I definitely think the presentation is part of it because that Hoffner bass is iconic in a way that his other basses weren't. Like for me, like my favorite McCartney bass is that Rickenbacker that got the psychedelic paint job in 67 and then was stripped to the natural finish. And he played it throughout the Wings era. But for most people, that Hoffner, that's the iconic bass. I think people want to see Paul with that bass. Paul and that base are synonymous to the point that that base is called a Beetle base. That's not the official name for that base, but even Hoffner I think, like comes out with state. They just call it a Beetle base. So I think it's probably Paul wants to be seen with that base that reminds people that he was a Beetle. But it's also four and a half pounds as opposed to a solid body base, which could be 9, 10, 11, £12, some. So if you're going to be carrying a bass for a three hour concert, probably easier to have that Hoffner though when he plays guitar, he plays a Les Paul, which typically, yeah, like insanely.
- [10:21]
Orion Salazar
Heavy guitar that Hoffner is featured. You've seen it. He's using the same stage sort of graphics he's been using for 10 years or more. And they're on either side of this, of the stage. In the warm up to the concert are two massive Hoffners. Have you seen this, Robert?
- [10:38]
Podcast Narrator
Yes, yes.
- [10:39]
Orion Salazar
So I mean they're definitely like selling, pushing the Hoffner association with Paul and the Beatles, which is so cool as a bass player to come into a show. And the first thing you see while the intro music is playing are these massive screens projecting a graphic of a Hoffner. You know, you're in the right place, you know, as a, as a bass player and a musician or whatever. Uh huh.
- [10:59]
Podcast Host
Harder for.
- [11:00]
Orion Salazar
And then the other thing, he can get all those tones on that bass and you really can't really. We the layman certainly can't hear the difference in a stadium. It's hard to hear bass sometimes in stadium shows anyway. In the McCartney shows, usually they push it so much that actually somehow I think that Hoepner cuts well, maybe better than some other basses might in a stadium because it's got this mid range thing happening. But besides him playing that, no one can tell the difference, number one. And also Brian Ray, the guitar player plays bass on four or five songs and he plays a precision, kind of more modern, traditional sounding bass guitars. So you get both. You know, he's playing McCartney's parts on certain songs when McCartney switches to guitar. So you get a good representation in the show.
- [11:44]
Rob Collier
Yeah, and I think, you know, like concert sound has improved to the point where maybe the technical limitations of recording that hoffner bass in 1963 and 64 probably aren't issues anymore. They can EQ the bass to make it cut through. He's playing in these arenas. I saw him three times on this tour. One of the shows I saw was in Minneapolis and he played in a football stadium. He played at where the Vikings play. Enormous place. And yeah, in places like that it's hard to really get that bass to cut through. But it does sometimes. The one that stands out in my mind from this tour is Mr. Kite. Being for the benefit of Mr. Kite, when he plays that, he's essentially playing the bass line that he played on the Sgt. Pepper record, which is a fantastic bass line. And he's playing that really while singing. But I don't know if maybe he told the sound guy, like, I'm gonna show off a little bit on bass in this one, so make sure it's audible.
- [12:48]
Orion Salazar
But like the bass is always pumped. Ed McCartney shows is great.
- [12:52]
Rob Collier
Yeah, it's awesome.
- [12:53]
Podcast Host
And that was definitely sort of his sweet spot as sort of really discovering what he could do once he started playing the Rick, and suddenly he could hear. Hear it more in the mix. He's using a different methodology in the studio, sometimes using direct injection, plugging the bass right into the board rather than miking the cabinet. So it seems like that's like his golden age, where suddenly he'd always been a great bass player. He'd always been a Paul McCarty, but when he switches to an instrument, there seems to be an inspirational aspect to him that, as you pointed out, coincided with the advanced evolution of their songwriting at the same time.
- [13:30]
Rob Collier
Right? Yeah. I think there are, like, so many things that converged in late 1965 that, for me, like, Rubber Soul is the turning point for Paul McCartney as a bass player. And it's a number of different things that happened around this time, like their improvement or growth as songwriters, where they're not just kind of writing, like, AABA songs in this, like, really traditional format. Sometimes they still use AABA forms, but they're being more experimental in their songs and in their songwriting. So I think he realizes that this traditional approach to bass, where he had just been playing kind of root fifth bass lines or just playing the roots of the chords, like those root fifth bass lines are just, like a standard part of a bass player's vocabulary. That's root fifth, root fifth, root fifth, root fifth bass players spend a high percentage of their lives playing those root fifth bass lines. And they show up in, like, country music, R and B music, rock and roll music. I used to play a lot of bluegrass. It's like, the only thing you play in bluegrass music. But McCartney played so much of those root fifth bass lines in the early years that were entirely appropriate for the songs that they were writing. But as they get into this more kind of experimental approach to writing their songs, those, like, traditional bass lines are no longer sufficient. Like, he has to be more creative, more imaginative for these more imaginative songs. And being influenced by James Jamerson on Motown Records, ducked on. On Stax Records, and hearing this bass, the sound of this bass coming from these American records kind of opened his eyes to what bass could be in a pop song. But, yeah, starting to play that Rickenbacker on the Rubber Soul album, it had a more even and consistent tone. It had a really punchy tone so that it could cut through the mix better than his Hoffner could, at least with the recording techniques that were available to them at the time. And it was kind of consistent anywhere he played on the neck, so he could play really high and it would cut through. He could Play really low and it would cut through. Whereas the Hoffner had these places where this part of the neck is kind of boomy and this part of the neck is kind of weak. So, yeah, so he could play these more active lines on the Rickenbacker and they could actually be heard on their recordings.
- [16:16]
Podcast Host
And that's the period rubber sole Revolver Pepper. But then come 68. They're gifted all this gear from Fender and he's to the jazz bass then.
- [16:26]
Rob Collier
Yeah. I'm not sure how much of the White Album he's playing the jazz bass. I've read like it's all jazz bass. And then I've read like maybe half of it is jazz bass, half of it still the Rickenbacher.
- [16:40]
Orion Salazar
I feel like you can hear maybe some of the jazz bass stuff. It's got this, like, top with, like. Would sound like round wound or some kind of really bright, like, trebly almost more Entwistle tone. Not playing, but tone like Gone. Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey and Last Onion. Yeah, they sound different somehow.
- [16:59]
Rob Collier
Yeah, they've got like kind of a sharper attack. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [17:03]
Podcast Host
Interesting. Okay, so we know during Let It Be he's back to the Hoffner because we see it and then Abbey Road. Do we know what he's using then?
- [17:12]
Rob Collier
I think Abbey Road is back to the Rick on a lot of stuff. Yeah, I'm not entirely sure about that. I think there's the Hoffner on some stuff, too.
- [17:23]
Orion Salazar
It doesn't sound like the jazz bass. That jazz bass period is so weird because it comes in and there are these few songs where some of the bass. I always wondered, are they. Is it ADT on that track? Or maybe he doubled it. Or maybe somebody else is doing a Tic Tac thing with the Fender 6. I don't think it gets that deep. I just think that jazz bass, whatever tone they got out of it and used for those few songs is really unique in the Beatles catalog. It just stands out. And that, yes, Abbey Road they go back to more what you've been hearing in the years previous, probably the Rick.
- [17:52]
Podcast Host
It is interesting how they would experiment in such completely unorthodox ways when it came to any instrument at all. They would do different things. They would try this sound, try this sound. There's the photos we've seen of the session during Rubber Soul. I think for Michelle, where he's got the capo on the bass. And it is something that through the rock band stems, was revealed to us when you Listen to that one track of Wild My Guitar Gently Weeps where There's apparently a 12 string doubling the bass line. Just to conceive this might be a good idea. Let's try it.
- [18:28]
Rob Collier
Yeah.
- [18:28]
Podcast Host
And I don't think anybody knew that 12 string was on that track until the rock band stems because it's not super apparent in the mix. Something's going on here, but you don't know what it is. Mr. Jones kind of thing. It just makes for a really cool sonic palette without really knowing quite how they arrived.
- [18:46]
Rob Collier
Yeah. That. Yeah. They were particularly from 65, from rubber sole on. They were just willing to try anything that. Yeah. That capo on the bass during Michelle is. There's absolutely no reason to ever play a bass with a capo on, I don't think. I can't think of a reason to ever play a bass with a capo on it. Unless you playing something where you need open. Like you're playing something high, but then you need an open string. Maybe than a capo would be useful. But there's a Bass Player magazine interview from 90s 95 with McCartney where the interviewer shows him this photo of him playing bass during the Rubber Soul sessions with this capo on. And McCartney's like, I have no idea why I was doing that. He didn't remember doing it. He couldn't figure out why he would have done it other than that he. They were just trying to find a new sound. And it was like, if this is gonna give them a new sound or give them a new way of thinking or playing, it was worth a shot. And like on Paperback Rider and Rain, they experimented with recording the bass instead of with a microphone. They wired that white elephant speaker in reverse. So the speaker was acting like a giant microphone. And that was also an experiment that I think it was fine. Like, it was good enough for those songs, but it wasn't something that they were like, oh, we gotta keep doing. We gotta keep recording bass that way. Like, it. It didn't make that much of a difference at all.
- [20:24]
Podcast Host
Well, it's interesting because they did it for the two sides of the single. So they were thinking in terms of where this would get airplay and not anything else on the Revolver album. And also we want that deep bottom sound we're hearing on the Stax records. So much so that they nearly recorded Revol in Memphis, but didn't for various reasons.
- [20:44]
Rob Collier
Yeah.
- [20:45]
Podcast Host
Also just that they recognized pretty quickly why people don't record that way. When the lathe cutter was like, jumping out of the groove and they had to recalibrate for that because the bass was so fat and thick that it was actually causing technical problems.
- [21:01]
Rob Collier
Right. Yeah, it was like. It was a worthwhile experiment, but, yeah, ultimately not something that they needed to keep working with.
- [21:09]
Podcast Host
Right.
- [21:10]
Orion Salazar
It goes without saying, but how lucky we are that they had the time and the impetus to be that adventurous in the studio. Because, man, the studio is just so fun. I can only imagine. And we're lucky for that, too. Right. Because we learned some of the tricks that they discovered.
- [21:26]
Podcast Host
We're lucky that they were successful right out of the box that they got that blank check to be able to do that kind of stuff.
- [21:33]
Orion Salazar
True.
- [21:33]
Rob Collier
Yeah.
- [21:34]
Podcast Host
What a luxury.
- [21:34]
Rob Collier
And that they were working with a team who was willing to let them experiment. I mean, George Martin in particular, but those engineers who were willing to just try to figure out whatever kind of weird sound or novel sound, everybody was willing to go with them, that they.
- [21:51]
Podcast Host
Were connected with a producer who had been making novelty records.
- [21:54]
Rob Collier
Yeah, totally perfect. Yeah.
- [21:56]
Podcast Host
Now, Rob, you've been doing this series of Transcribing all the McCartney bass lines to a degree of detail that is, like, unheard of, but is so satisfying for people that are into that knowledge. Want to describe that for the listeners who might not be aware of the articles you've written for Bass Musician and the work you've been doing.
- [22:17]
Rob Collier
Yeah, so I started. I mean, yeah, I had written some articles for Bass Musician magazine. It's maybe been a decade now.
- [22:25]
Podcast Host
2012 is what I saw.
- [22:26]
Rob Collier
Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, it's been a while. But I wrote a few articles on McCartney's bass lines and then some articles. Wrote one on Rick Danko, one on Duck Dunn, a few other bass players, Phil Lesh from the Grateful Dead. But more recently, in the last few years, I just started this kind of personal project of I'm going to start transcribing McCartney's bass lines chronologically, like, starting with Love Me do, and then the Please, Please Me album. And kind of as a way of, like, I want to document McCartney's growth as a bass player. I mean, these were bass lines that. I had played a lot of them already, and I had been listening to them since I was a teenager. But I decided, like, I'm going to get way inside these bass lines. And, you know, there. There are other published transcriptions. There's the, like, big. The Beatles complete scores that came out in the late 80s, I think, which essentially has, like, everything transcribed. I'm going to put quotes around everything. Everything transcribed. But the, you know, the Basel aren't super detailed. There's some errors. One of the most frustrating things for me is that they would put repeat signs around a verse. Like, they would transcribe one verse and then just put repeat signs around it as if the second verse was going to be exactly the same. And often the second verse is not exactly the same as the first verse. So one of the things that was interesting to me is what's different? What did McCartney change from the first verse to the second verse? Because you start to hear him kind of build baselines from verse to verse. So there are a lot of these, like, really, really interesting details that were left out of transcriptions like that. And so I started just transcribing these bass lines with as much detail as I could. Not just notes and rhythms, but, like, articulations. Is this. Did he play it staccato? Is it smooth? Did he kind of slide into the note? Did he slide off of the note? Is it a hammer on? Is it, you know, all, like, as much detail as I can put in there? Yeah, I'm trying to get that in the transcriptions. And then at some point, I started thinking, well, like, I'll just. I'll make videos of me playing these bass lines that I'm transcribing that wasn't even originally a part of it, but has become a big part of it. Now I have a YouTube channel and Instagram channel where I post videos of me playing these bass lines, trying to get as close to what McCartney played as possible. And I usually also, like, try to mix the bass really high. Like, me playing the bass, try to get that really, really high in the mix. Because I think a lot of Beatles fans maybe have heard, like, McCartney is supposed to be a great bass player, but they've never really been able to pick the bass line out or, like, focus on the bass line. So, yeah, I try to get the bass line cranked as much as I can so people can hear, like, what kind of wild stuff McCartney was doing in song.
- [25:36]
Podcast Host
And if they're not buying the Giles mixes.
- [25:38]
Rob Collier
Yeah, right. Ye. Yeah, Giles turns up the bass in a lot of those mixes and also kind of makes. Yeah, he boosts the low end. Just kind of fills up that low frequency spectrum, which, even though the bass is louder, sometimes it feels boomier or, like, muddier, like, less clear. On those original, like, pepper in particular, McCartney's base is just, like, so crystal clear. And it doesn't have that heavy bottom end that that Giles Martin put on.
- [26:10]
Orion Salazar
That's their attempt to make it sound contemporary, maybe to reach. We were talking about before, to reach new audience, younger people so that it sounds more like what they might hear on a current pop record. Yeah, that's a tough thing to do because it wasn't meant to be that way.
- [26:27]
Podcast Host
I guess if it's meant to be a gateway to bring in people too young to have experienced them earlier and it turns them into Beatle fans, I guess it is serving its purpose. But it's not the Beatles design and shouldn't be regarded as such. These are not replacements for the original Beatle tracks, but they are version that maybe some people like the extended 12 inch disco version. You may like this version of the song, just don't mistake it for the canon that the Beatles intended because this is not that.
- [26:57]
Rob Collier
Right? Yeah. I love hearing these songs. Anything that lets me hear the songs in a new way, I absolutely love. And so I really enjoy hearing Giles Martin's mixes and I listened to them a couple of times and then I'm usually kind of right Back to. The 2009 remasters are usually my go tos. So I'm always interested in what Giles Martin does, but they don't become the version that I. That I listen to regularly.
- [27:27]
Podcast Host
So in your methodology, do you find if you're stuck on something into 2009 or some other previous iteration, you can go to some of these Giles remixes or some even of the early takes of things and that will shine the light on something that you couldn't decipher previously?
- [27:44]
Rob Collier
Yeah, definitely. I usually start with the mono or stereo mixes or the 2009 remasters of those mono and stereo mixes. But you can hear different things in the mono version versus the stereo version. And sometimes, particularly on the early albums, the bass gets so buried in the mixes. And so the songs that ended up on the remaster or remixed Red and Blue album from a couple years ago, Giles Martin's remixes of those songs. A lot of times it's easier to hear the bass on like A Hard Day's Night or those songs that made it to that compilation. And then.
- [28:23]
Podcast Host
And then there were the rock band stems then.
- [28:25]
Rob Collier
The rock band stems are really helpful. Yeah. Some of those are cleaner than others. Like some of them are still just like. Yeah, this is not a pleasant, pleasant thing to listen to.
- [28:37]
Podcast Host
Noisy artifacts in them.
- [28:39]
Rob Collier
Yeah.
- [28:40]
Podcast Host
And people shouldn't mistake them for being the actual multi tracks because they're not that. It's not like the isolated tracks at all.
- [28:46]
Rob Collier
Right. Yeah. So it's nice to have all of those different versions because Some versions gets a little bit easier to pick out something that he's doing on the bridge or, you know, something that's buried in one of the mixes. Might be really clear in another.
- [29:01]
Podcast Host
I remember for a previous show, I can't remember the show or why I was making this particular point, but I was wanting to find an isolated bass track of Paul playing on Boys. And I didn't have a rock band stemmed for it. But then I found the recording they did at the Liverpool Theater, whatever it's called, in December 63 for the. It's the Beatles TV special. The sound, the board mix was so terrible that for Boys, all you could hear was the bass. So it's like this is as good as an isolation. So, yeah, every once in a while you look out.
- [29:33]
Rob Collier
Yeah, yeah, Like you mentioned the Anthology version. Sometimes the base is clearer. He's not always doing the exact same thing in an earlier take, but a lot of times, yeah, it might be close enough that you can hear. Oh, yeah, that's what's happening in the song.
- [30:20]
Podcast Host
So for what he was doing, certainly for all his Beatle career, definitely gaining prominence circa 65, 66, the kind of bass lines he's putting into Beatle recordings that certainly have been described as melodic. And I think in that sense, what normally would be sort of shoring up the bottom end in a recording is suddenly gaining prominence in songs like Nowhere Mad, for instance, Drive My Car, things like that, where bass is suddenly. Not only is it more audible in the mix, but it's actually orchestrated in a way that is at variance from the lead vocal or a guitar riff, that it' a melody line unto itself that you could hum or stick in your head like an earworm. How singular was that in the pop rock world of that era?
- [31:05]
Rob Collier
I mean, there. There was a precedent for it in James Jamerson. Jamerson was the Motown bass player who played on almost all of those mid-60s recordings by the Supremes and the Temptations, Four Tops and Marvin Gaye and Martha Vandellas, all of those people, they all kind of have the same house band. And James Jamerson was the house bass player who would play these essentially melodic bass lines that would move through the chord chains rather than just kind of playing just the roots of the chords or just that kind of root. Fifth, traditional approach to bass, James Jamerson was creating these bass lines that had this sort of longer shape, these kind of creating longer phrases. And so McCartney has said that Jamerson was his hero in that era, though I think it was much later, before he actually knew who the bass player was. He would just listen to these recordings that that bass is phenomenal. And so even though the Beatles weren't really making Motown esque songs, like there's some kind of soul stuff on Rubber Soul, but like, Nowhere man is essentially a folk rock song. But McCartney plays this bass that just moves through the chord progression. And so, yeah, this is the bass line that McCartney's playing on the verse of Nowhere Man. Most bass players would have approached that chord progression as like, I'm going to play like, like root and fifth of these chords. And that would have been totally fine. Like, that would have been appropriate. McCartney could have done that. But instead he takes this kind of Jamerson approach of playing this melody that, yeah, moves through the whole verse and yeah, it's not. He's not doubling the guitars, he's not doubling the vocals. He created a new melody that he's playing on bass and becomes like a counter melody to the vocal melody. It's a kind of counterpoint rather than. Yeah, just, you know, sitting in the rhythm section, playing the roots of the chords, holding down the groove. He plays this really active melodic line.
- [33:39]
Podcast Host
He sees the spotlight.
- [33:41]
Orion Salazar
Yeah, he sees his spotlight. And also he's outlining the chords. But it does become like a string part. Like almost maybe a cello part to itself. Never overshadowing anything else or stepping on anything but moving it and bringing it up, you know?
- [33:56]
Rob Collier
Yeah, it becomes like chamber music. Like if you listen to a string quartet piece, the cello, which is the bass instrument in a string quartet, isn't just going to be playing the roots of the chords, it's playing a moving line and it's playing counterpoint to the string instruments above it. Viola and the two violins. So McCartney is taking the bass. It's still in the rhythm section. He's still like holding down the groove and holding down kind of the bottom end the song. And like you said, he's outlining the chords, but he makes the baseline like an active melodic voice in the song.
- [34:36]
Orion Salazar
It's a folk rock song. I mean, it's like maybe a birds type thing. McCartney brings in this thing that's got this funk Ringo. There's a pocket and a groove happening in that song that takes it somewhere else. So it's still sort of beautiful and. But yeah, it's kind of funky. I mean, it's super funky. It is, actually. It's got a great pocket, right? Yeah, it moves.
- [34:57]
Podcast Host
Say more about that locking with Ringo in terms of the value of a bassist and a drummer that are listening to Each other.
- [35:04]
Orion Salazar
That's a whole show basically. I think this is maybe one of the Beatles most important secret weapons was Paul and Ringo were funky just straight up like some of the tracks. There's a bunch of them but you know My Name or Flying, Flying for Magical Mystery Tour. That. That instrumental. It sounds like A Tribe Called Quest groove or De La Soul group. It's like that 90s psychedelic hip hop swing.
- [35:28]
Rob Collier
I mean I think Baby, you're a Rich Man Too has that heavy groove.
- [35:32]
Orion Salazar
Yes. So somehow they got hip to that early on. Ringo was. I just. They're naturally had it. I know they listened to R and B music and they loved it. But they're white British kids somehow those two guys and Paul certainly. And Ringo had funk and a pocket that helped put the Beatles sort of above a lot of other bands.
- [35:53]
Rob Collier
Yeah, I think groove is so important in pop music or rock music and Ringo and Paul had this groove together and a lot of people think of Ringo as like not a great drummer. He wasn't a flashy drummer. Yeah.
- [36:10]
Orion Salazar
But like greasy.
- [36:11]
Rob Collier
Yeah. The drums are so important in rock music because they give it that feel and the bass has to lock in with that feel. If Ringo wasn't a good drummer, those songs wouldn't have felt like that. But they have this like deep groove that's. It doesn't matter how simple the part is that Ringo's playing or if Paul's playing a simple part, that feel, that pocket that they create together is so important.
- [36:40]
Podcast Host
It makes it all the more miraculous that there's this tiny, tiny window between Ringo joining the band in August of 62 and what, three weeks later or less they're recording Love Me do, their first single for Parlophone. Now Paul to this point had been used to playing with a very different drum. Who, God bless Pete Best, didn't have the scope or imagination that a Ringo did. Ringo, through his apprenticeship at Butlins, was tasked to play a variety of styles in a way that Pete didn't. He was a straight up rock and roll drummer based on everything we've heard from him and in what he'd been tasked with playing in club. So here's Ringo. The sky's the limit with him. How incredibly liberating that must have been for Paul. It's like now I can act on my wildest imagination. Who demonstrably was not locked into straight up rock and roll. His palette was as wide as the imagination as well. And he was a guy that could play guitar, attempted lead guitar to that point, could play keys, had whatever experience he had on trumpet, but he thought in the entire array of instrumentation. And now he's suddenly with a drummer who's just as wide open and suddenly he can do all kinds of things that maybe he was held back from doing before, limited to that very narrow spectrum of beat group, club band that they were.
- [38:03]
Rob Collier
Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think you said liberating, like that's a perfect word for it. Just freeing. Yeah. They locked in with each other so quickly. Experienced musicians do pickup gigs and, like, get hired for a gig, and I've never played with these players before and I've got to lock in with them starting at 6pm tonight or whatever. But both of those musicians, Paul and Ringo, were experienced musicians by that point and played thousands and thousands of hours. And so they fell into each other's grooves, like, so quickly and naturally. It's really incredible.
- [38:43]
Podcast Host
It makes you wonder if it really changed Paul's way of thinking as a bass player. It was an instrument he didn't aspire to in the first place. It was sort of foisted on him, as he's fond of telling. And he goes on to become one of the most innovative people in the rock world, certainly of the 1960s. What is it you would say that set him apart from his contemporaries? If you look at the British bands of the day, the who, the Stones, Yardbirds, maybe, what do you think set him apart from them? I mean, it seemed to be certainly an amazingly, astonishingly fruitful period for people to suddenly break past the paradigms of rock and roll as they knew it to that point, getting into psychedelia, bringing in Eastern C sounds, just doing all kinds of stuff that just widened the paradigm very wide, very fast.
- [39:33]
Rob Collier
Yeah, well, he was a remarkable bass player, but he started as a traditional bass player. In the first few years of the band, he was a very, very traditional bass player. And so that harmonic knowledge that you talked about, like, he could play all of these instruments and he hear the entire arrangement. Yeah, in a way, it's no surprise that that eventually transferred to his bass playing. But through the Help album, like so much of the Help album, he's playing chord roots, Root and fifth. Robert, you and I were both at the Everything Fab four Fest conference on Rubber Soul a few weeks ago, and the presentation that I gave was on McCartney's bass lines on Rubber Soul. And one thing that I did in preparation for that presentation was I counted all of the notes other than root and fifth in the entire Help album. And then I counted all of the notes other than Root and fifth in the Rubber Soul album in Paul's bass line. And I can pull up those numbers real quick because it's like a staggering difference. Those, like, the root and fifth are like anchors of a chord. They're really strong, stable notes, but they're not always the most interesting notes. But bass players, we spend our lives playing root and fifth. And so Paul playing a ton of root and fifth stuff on Help, that was normal bass player stuff. He was correct to do that. But so on the Help album, he played notes other than root and 5th 491times. On rubber Soul, he played notes other than root and fifth, 1247 times. 491 to 1247. And then I, like, broke it down into like. Like averages per song, averages per minute, averages per measure. In all of those cases, his, like, essentially the movement doubled in Rubber Soul, the movement in those bass lines doubled. The notes other than root and fifth more than doubled from the Help album to the Rubber Soul album. So it was just all of a sudden, you almost like listening to the Rubber Soul album. You, like, hear Paul McCartney having an epiphany as a bass player that these bass lines could be. Be something else. They. He didn't just have to play root and fifth or root notes of the chords. He could play this wild, melodic bass line. On Nowhere man, he could play. The you won't see me bass line is just as active and just as beautiful as the Nowhere man bass line that he absolutely would not have played even just earlier in the year on.
- [42:19]
Podcast Host
Hell, I bet if you take your study back to the deca audition, you will find that scope narrowed even further still.
- [42:25]
Rob Collier
I'm sure, I'm sure, yeah. You talking about the difference between the Deca audition, like, with Pete versus even just later in the year with Ringo? It's not something that I've done in my transcriptions, but it would be really, really fascinating to do.
- [42:41]
Podcast Host
Yeah, sure.
- [42:42]
Paul McCartney (Interviewee)
And then eventually I got my own bass and I was kind of in on bass. So I was always like a frustration guitarist playing bass.
- [42:49]
Rob Collier
Those melodic lines, particularly the ones that.
- [42:51]
Podcast Host
Showed up on sergeant Pepper, were.
- [42:53]
Rob Collier
I mean, there was no precedent for.
- [42:55]
Paul McCartney (Interviewee)
That in rock music because I was just getting on with bass and just always the stuff I'd always liked had been little lines that worked and yet had their own little identity instead of just staying in the background. By then, anyway, bass was coming up to the fore in mixes as you listen to early Beatle mixes, and the bass and the bass drum aren't there. We were still starting to take over ourselves. And bass was coming to the fore anyway, so I had to do something with it when it was getting in the fore. I was listening to a lot of kind of Motowns and Marvin Gaye and Stax and stuff, which were putting some nice little bass lines in. But I think the big influence was Pet Sounds, Beach Boys. That was the album. Flip Me still does, actually. Still one of my favourite albums of all time. Just because the musical invention on that is like, wow. Well, that was the big thing for me. I just thought, oh, dear me, this is the album of all time. What the hell are we gonna do? So my ideas took off from that standard and I wanted to do stuff beyond that. So my bass playing started. I don't know if that was a direct result of that, but I was.
- [43:53]
Podcast Host
Thinking along those lines now with this sweet era of exploring the outer limits with his Rickenbacker. There's a lot to talk about on Pepper that you've described as like a real high point in terms of his bass innovation there. Any specific songs?
- [44:10]
Rob Collier
No.
- [44:10]
Podcast Host
Lovely R Rita is one of the ones that you've cited in your work as something truly exceptional.
- [44:15]
Rob Collier
Lovely Rita is my all time favorite bass line. I don't necessarily think it's the best bass line that McCartney ever played. I think probably something from Abbey Road is like, that's his masterpiece almost.
- [44:32]
Podcast Host
We'll get to that.
- [44:32]
Rob Collier
As a bass player. Yeah, yeah. But Lovely Rita, yeah, that's my favorite bass line because it's like an encyclopedia of patterns for bass player. Like, it's almost like an etude. It's like a bass etude. You learn the Lovely Rita bass line and you all of a sudden have all of these patterns at your disposal that like so many of those patterns then showed up on other songs on the Pepper album. They show up in his bass lines on the White Album on Abbey Road. It's like he came up with like, it's not a new pattern for every measure, but like there's some repetition of those patterns. But it's so many different bass patterns that are these perfect patterns for creating a melodic bass.
- [45:22]
Orion Salazar
He loved using those triads all the time. And Lovely Rita's. You're right, it is such a nice track. Another one super funky with rad staccato, like just crazy backbeat from Ringo and McCartney on top. Really laying in like almost like a Sly Stone record. Like Larry Graham, that same kind of feel. And then he's also got those. Those slides. He's got those slides he's starting to do on that track that he always uses a lot, like, sort of in the next few records, you hear him more and more.
- [46:00]
Rob Collier
Sam.
- [46:36]
Orion Salazar
Yeah, you're right. Lovely Rita is incredible.
- [46:37]
Rob Collier
Yeah.
- [46:38]
Orion Salazar
And you also write about this thing of that being a really good song for, like, maybe a bass player to learn, a beginner bass player to learn and get a sort of vocabulary down that you could then use. You've got the triad thing. You've got the scales moving up, scales moving down. It's a great learning song.
- [46:56]
Rob Collier
Totally. Yeah. And it's like, almost like a walking line. Like, so much of the line is just in straight eighth notes. But like you said, there's like, staccato stuff. He, like, scoops into notes, he falls off of notes. It is expressive the entire time. It's never just this kind of, like, static or monotonous kind of bass line. Let me see if I can play a little bit of this bass line. Just. Just like, if people haven't really thought about the baseline in this song also, I'm going to play this cold. This is not like I'm. It's not a song that I've practiced. No pressure recently. Okay, so this is like. I'll start on the first verse of the song. I just like constant motion outlining these chords with arpeggios. So, like playing the triads. But also. Yeah, like you said, ascending scales, descending scales, walk ups, walk downs. It's just like endless invention on the bass. And it sort of becomes like almost like a Rosetta stone to his bass playing. Because you start to hear, like, that pattern that he plays in hello, Goodbye, like, that's from Lovely Rita. This pattern that he's playing in Crybaby Cry or Sexy Sadie or Dear Prudence, like, that's coming from, like, all of those showed up in Lovely Rita.
- [48:32]
Orion Salazar
Wow, you're right.
- [48:33]
Podcast Host
That's a great way to put it. I love that Rosetta Stone.
- [48:36]
Rob Collier
It's my absolute favorite McCartney bass line. And part of it is because I feel like I become a better bass player when I learn it, when I practice it, when I play it, because I get all of these, like, really great bass patterns reinforced every time I play it.
- [48:54]
Orion Salazar
And if you learn. If you get into the weeds like you are, and you learn the feel and like, he's different feels within the same two bars, you know, with length of notes and stuff, we're going into nerd world. But you can learn a lot from that one track. It's a good point. And speaking of string parts, that's very much like a maybe A cello part or thing?
- [49:13]
Rob Collier
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Especially those artists. Arpeggio things like that kind of stuff.
- [49:21]
Podcast Host
Oh, yeah.
- [49:22]
Rob Collier
Very kind of, like Mozart's left hand in his, like, piano sonatas.
- [49:27]
Podcast Host
That is so cool.
- [49:28]
Rob Collier
Yeah.
- [49:29]
Podcast Host
Is there any kind of consistency or any sort of pattern you pick up on in him picking with his fingers versus playing with a pick? Throughout the Beatles career, was he very consistent or do you see very specific, Specific instances where he switches from one way to the other?
- [49:45]
Rob Collier
He was almost always a pick player. You see him playing with his fingers occasionally in, like, promotional videos. Like, I think the hello Goodbye video, he's playing with his fingers. And in some of the, like, the, like, Day Tripper videos, maybe he's playing with his fingers where they're just miming to a recording. A lot of times he will play with his fingers, but I feel like most of the time in the studio and live. Yeah, he was always playing with a pick.
- [50:17]
Orion Salazar
Those tunes are definitely pick songs, the two you just named. And I would say that he maybe went to finger style for ballads, maybe like, very quiet songs like I'll Follow the Sun, where they didn't want an attack. So he's sort of doing, like, maybe closer to what an upright would sound like. But, yeah, most of the time he's more expressive with a pick. He's more buoyant. McCartney joyous energy with. Yeah, like, that's a big part of where he's at.
- [50:43]
Rob Collier
Right.
- [50:44]
Podcast Host
That's interesting because I'm not a bassist and I never tried to listen to the difference, but I was relying. Exactly. And what you described the visual clues watching him in a music video. So you're saying basically that's faked. It's him going through the motions, what's already been played with a pick on the record.
- [50:58]
Rob Collier
Yeah, definitely. And, yeah, that, like playing with your fingers a lot of times. Yeah. Gets a kind of warmer tone. Playing with a pick, you get more attack. You can get a kind of punchier sound sometimes, but a lot of times that attack is what helps cut the bass or, like, it helps the bass cut through the mix. So playing with the pick is part of what makes those songs sound, or makes his bass sound clear in those songs and gives it that kind of punchy sound, particularly in, like, 66, 67.
- [51:30]
Orion Salazar
And then one thing I would say is I'm sure you've got into this is palm muting, especially with the Hoffner. You've sort of have to do a little bit of palm muting, meaning you're dampening the strings a Little bit with this part of your hand.
- [51:42]
Rob Collier
Yeah.
- [51:42]
Orion Salazar
And he's just naturally fell into that, I guess. But maybe you've seen people pick up Hoffners before and try to play them like a regular bass, and it doesn't always work. Yeah, but Carney really did this thing and was able to make that bass sing by his use of which I feel like is bass nerd stuff. But it's an important part of how he did it.
- [52:01]
Rob Collier
Yeah, it was a part of his sound. And. And those Hoffner basses, they're not like regular basses. Like, they have their own kind of peculiarities. And generally, like, on some basses, you can really, like, dig in, play really hard, and get a kind of aggressive tone. I think probably Hoffners sound worse the harder you play them. So, like, they often require a kind of light touch, that palm muting. He gets this kind of, like, nice, warm, round sound, like, kind of thumpy bass sound, but still with that attack of the pick.
- [52:37]
Podcast Host
That's a really good point you guys both bring up is how much the very first bass he acquired because he didn't play a regular bass prior to. He had, like, a guitar with piano strings on it, but his first real bass was the Hoffner. How much that would have influenced his development as a player and his imagination and to. What is my role here? What am I going to do? Well, I've got this instrument, and this is the scope of it, so I'm going to develop as a basis with what this instrument can do, as opposed to a P bass or something else he might have picked up.
- [53:10]
Orion Salazar
Exactly.
- [53:11]
Rob Collier
Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah. He learned to play bass on that Hoffner, so it became part of his sound, part of his style, which is another reason why that switch to the Rickenbacker made such a huge impact. It probably wouldn't have had the impact if he had just started on a P bass. Like, there's. Yeah, it's not such a big leap to then move to that solid body. Rickenbacker.
- [53:34]
Orion Salazar
Yeah. I always loved the serendipity of them being in Germany and him just happening to get this German bass with this very specific thing. There's plenty of music styles you maybe wouldn't go. You wouldn't go to a Hafner to play, but he's able to pretty much cover all those styles by virtue of learning on the instrument and figuring it out.
- [53:52]
Rob Collier
Yeah.
- [53:53]
Orion Salazar
And it's so cool.
- [53:54]
Rob Collier
Yeah. And honestly, like, if I were playing, like, these rock and roll. A Hoffner would not be the base that I would just like instinctively go for but like that was essentially their repertoire or there was a big part of their repertoire when he started playing basses, these old 50s rock and roll songs and like rhythm and blues St. I definitely would have gone for a P base. A Hoffner would not have been my first choice but it's a fascinating thing that that's the base that he ended up with.
- [54:56]
Podcast Host
Serendipitous for sure.
- [54:57]
Rob Collier
Yeah.
- [54:57]
Podcast Host
I wonder, I don't know if anybody happens to know off the top of their head I'm trying to think back in pictures I've seen of their contemporaries, the people playing the Hamburg Liverpool club circuit. What were their bass players playing? I would imagine some kind of solid body, possibly offender base.
- [55:13]
Rob Collier
That would be a question.
- [55:14]
Orion Salazar
You're probably seeing a lot of like maybe burns or you're seeing European bases maybe and may some Fenders too. The Shadows they play burns, I think.
- [55:23]
Podcast Host
I don't know.
- [55:24]
Rob Collier
That's a good question. I feel like that clip that's in the anthology of where George is talking about like coming back to Liverpool after being in Hamburg and everybody is playing the Shadows stuff and cuts to them doing the dump Da dum da dum da dum da stuff. I feel like that bass player is playing a P bass but I would not swear to that.
- [55:44]
Podcast Host
Stewart acquired that big old hollow body but anecdotally we're told it was because of the look is why I bought it because it just looked cool and he was a small framed guy. We don't really know what it sounded like.
- [55:56]
Rob Collier
Right.
- [55:56]
Orion Salazar
We saw Stewart playing with the President. Is that what it's called? The bigger one, the Big Hoffner, also a Hoffner is a great sounding bass but the violin bass actually sounds different because it's not so big. It's maybe not as boomy. Very similar, but yeah.
- [56:11]
Podcast Host
So you've cited something as what you think is like his zenith as the Beatles bass player. We know that we've been told that George had made some kind of comment about Paul being too busy on it and therefore a lot of people are walking around with this perception that George hated what he did on his song but that's not the case at all. But can you say more about what it is that elevates something as high as your esteem for it is in terms of Paul McCartney bass performances?
- [56:40]
Rob Collier
Yeah. So it's a really, really active bass line. It's constantly moving, which that's not always a good thing but for a song that builds.
- [56:51]
Podcast Host
It's entirely suitable, appropriate, right?
- [56:54]
Rob Collier
And it's this, it's like always a very, very expressive bass line. Like, he's not just playing like straight 16th notes against this kind of like slow, like, mellow groove. He's mixing these kind of long notes and then he'll go into a run of 16th notes or 8th notes notes. So it becomes this really, really expressive melody rather than this kind of like, he's not trying to like, lock into a metronomic groove. It's really, really expressive and it's definitely so much busier than it needed to be. Like, a lot of bass players would have really played like a very, very simple, kind of supportive bass line. And McCartney plays this really, really active baseline. But it's like so much of the movement of his between George's vocal phrase. So it's not like McCartney's like stepping on George's voice. It's almost a kind of like question and answer. There's, yeah, this interaction between George's voice and McCartney's bass line.
- [57:59]
Podcast Host
And Ringo is kind of sparse at that early points in the song too. So he's got the room to do that without stepping on anything.
- [58:06]
Rob Collier
Right? 100%. Like Ringo's groove, it gradually builds through the song, but in the first couple of verses, he's playing the sparsest drum beat imaginable. I think he plays like maybe two or three drum fills in the first minute of the song. Or even more maybe. Like, it's so sparse. Ringo's not taking up any space. There's like a rhythm guitar, but it's mostly strumming chords. There's not a whole lot of movement in the guitar. Strings come in, but the strings are mostly just sustaining chords. They're not moving. An organ comes in, then it's mostly just sustaining chords. It's not moving. So for the first half of the song, the only two moving musical parts are George's vocal line and McCartney's bass. And so there's just this kind of counterpoint between these two sort of musical lines. That's just beautiful.
- [59:06]
Orion Salazar
Sam.
- [59:39]
Rob Collier
But then also we move into the bridge and Ringo's part becomes more active. He starts kind of doing a. A drum beat that moves across the Toms. So Ringo becomes more active and McCartney falls back into a kind of straighter, more regular part. It's still a really interesting bass line, but it becomes this kind of straight eighth note part rather than this sort of like free, like, bass solo, which it, it had kind of been up to that point.
- [60:08]
Orion Salazar
I have a theory that That. I mean, I love the bass line. I just love the bass line, period. But that maybe on some very subconscious level, McCartney, like, maybe he sensed the greatness of this track he was playing on and not, like, in a subterfuge way, but just went crazy a little more without even knowing why, because of that, but because he's McCartney, he just can't play a bad track. He just can't play bad music. So he's right on the. Like, you're saying it's like a bass solo, pretty much. And. But it's right on the cusp of being overplaying and just bad. And it's not. Instead, it's great.
- [60:44]
Podcast Host
Yeah.
- [60:45]
Orion Salazar
Maybe somewhere in there, McCartney was like, this motherfucker just wrote this. I'm gonna. I'm gonna show you. You know, somehow, somewhere in there. I don't know. It's my theory.
- [60:54]
Podcast Narrator
Well, I think we all kind of.
- [60:55]
Podcast Host
Agree that there is moments when, if it's not Paul's composition, he will be a little bit more extra in what he contributes to it, to leave his mark and take his share of the spotlight. Not at all saying this in a bad way, because ultimately it's to the greater good. And you can think of things that he didn't originate, like Tomorrow Never Knows or A Tax man, something like that, where his contributions absolutely elevate it. And I don't think this is any exception with something. I think it's a wonderful baseline. And to go along with his fantastic backing vocal harmonies he does, especially on the bridge with George, it's like, yes, this is a great, great song. I want a piece of it.
- [61:31]
Rob Collier
Yeah, yeah, totally. It's not his song, but, yeah, he wants to be a part of it. He wants to put his mark on this song. So I think there are definitely, like, Paul's songs where he plays a great baseline. There's a great bass line on basically every song on sergeant Pepper. But, yeah, like his songs, he often has the bass kind of take more of a backseat, a more supporting role. It's not universal, but it often happens. And I think he continued that with Wing's stuff. I think he's even talked about how he was focused more on being the front man in the band. He was the leader of the band. He was the lead singer, the songwriter. Arrangements were his work primarily. And so bass was kind of a secondary thing. There are definitely some really fabulous bass lines and the Wings There era. But for the most part, in the 70s, his bass playing went back to being, like, kind of traditional and supportive.
- [62:33]
Podcast Host
When you started this process of really close listening to the Beatle recordings to transcribe the bass parts. Was there anything that after years of listening to these songs and suddenly when you're really drilling down to it to get it right, surprised you that you hadn't been aware of before?
- [62:49]
Rob Collier
Yes, one thing is. Is now it's a very obvious thing. But Pepper had always been this, like, breakout album for McCartney as a bass player. And he's talked about that, like, that's his favorite era of his bass playing. And, like, knew, like, oh, like, Andrew Bird can sing, has a great bass line and Nowhere man has a great bass line. But it was really like, when I started transcribing this stuff in order that I saw this, like, clear line in the sand between Help and Rubber Soul, and it was just like, yeah. His genius bass playing didn't start at Pepper, it started at Rubber Soul. Another thing is, it struck me a little bit how improvisational some of the early song sounded. He had a basic idea of what he was going to play in, like, a Hard Day's Night era song. But, yeah, there are these, like, little variations. Like, All My Love in is essentially a composed bass line. Essentially, every time the verse comes up, he's playing that sort of descending walking line. But on so many other songs, he has this kind of general idea of what the bass line is going to be, but it's going to be slightly different from take one to take two to take three. And then there will be, like. He'll get into these moments of, this is what I'm gonna play in the bridge. And it's the same every time the bridge comes up. But, yeah, he was more improvisational than I had really thought.
- [64:22]
Podcast Host
Yeah, to the extent that I listened to his bass, which I do focus on different parts when I listen to Beatles recordings, but I would never even claim to be as closely drilling into it as you would be to transcribe it. I became aware at some point early on that the same part of the song coupling around the second time, he would do something different, which I thought. And part of me is like, oh, it was so cool when you did the first time. You know, you're not doing the second time. But I get, as the kind of guy he is, that I'm not going to repeat myself. I'm not going to give you what you expect. I'm going to do something fresh. I'm going to fool you because I'm a beetle, you know, kind of headspace.
- [65:00]
Orion Salazar
I also feel like McCartney, out of all of them Was. And you can see this on all the live shows, he's always the one screaming off mic to, like, mock shout and get people excited. So maybe he's the most conscious or certainly very conscious of, like, the energy that's coming through him elevating the track. So that means if he feels something playing the second verse, he's going to maybe put energy into it a different way to make it exciting, you know what I mean? And I feel like he was conscious of that all the time. Maybe more so than the other guys. He's really the only one screaming off mike a lot in these different places. We just watching the Anthology yesterday and I just. I mean, I knew this already, but it just struck me again, again, McCartney is into, like, conscious of, like, we're keeping this exciting from moment to moment and we're taking you on a ride. And so, same thing applies to when he's tracking base.
- [65:50]
Rob Collier
It feels like totally. Yeah. He's like a very in the moment kind of player. And, yeah, like, speaking of those, like, kind of whoops and yells and stuff, I just finished this morning, Part six, I think, the one that's about sergeant Pepper and All youl Need Is Love. And there's a moment in all youl Need Is Love, like kind of between vocal phrases when McCartney just, like, lets out this little whoop and, like, you see John, like, look over and smile at him, just like. Yeah, McCartney was feeling it in the moment. And just like, I'm going to let out this. This little yell, this spark plug.
- [66:25]
Orion Salazar
He's like a vibe master. Yeah, spark plug, exactly.
- [66:28]
Rob Collier
Yeah, yeah.
- [66:28]
Podcast Host
You guys are reminding me of. Cause I've been in Ivy's Badfinger world this year. The recording of Rock of All Ages that he produced and he plays piano. And if you listen to. There's not the released version on the Apple, but there was the version that was put out on the soundtrack on Commonwealth United, which is a different mix. And there's way more McCartney presence up front in it of him just going to town with the Little Richard bit. And it is so cool to hear. I almost wish they would put that version out, but I could see why he'd want to tamp his contribution down to keep the spotlight on those guys. But it's cool that late in the Beatles career that he's, like, back in Hamburg.
- [67:06]
Rob Collier
Yeah, that's really cool. I'm not familiar with that recording.
- [67:09]
Orion Salazar
No, I'm not either. I need to check that out.
- [67:11]
Podcast Host
Oh, yeah. Rock of All Ages. There was the three songs they did for Magic Christian, Come and Get It. Rock of All Ages and Carry On Till Tomorrow. And Rock of All Ages is a sort of Little Richard type of number that Tommy Evans screaming his lungs out. So, yeah, do check it out, listeners.
- [67:26]
Rob Collier
Yeah, it's been so long. I've listened to Straight up and no Dice so much. But yeah, I don't go back to Magic Chris music a whole lot.
- [67:35]
Podcast Host
Well, it's pretty much an Ivy's album, but it has its moments. So going forward, I wouldn't even dream that you'd be going into transcribing everything he did as a solo artist or Wing. But as a bassist, as a fan. Are there particular standout bass lines that you can point to? Orion. I know which one you would point to, I think because we've talked about it before. A Good Night Tonight.
- [67:56]
Orion Salazar
It's great. That's his Bernard Edwards bit, right? He's sort of Channeling all the 3 on E thing or whatever kind of.
- [68:04]
Podcast Host
But yeah, just an amazing performer. That's what makes that record for me for sure.
- [68:08]
Orion Salazar
By the way, that's like Just a Brief Thing again. Yes, again. There's a sound check jam from the Wings Over America tour that I heard. Whether it's Joe English and he could do like straight session player, 70s funk, super convincing and they're doing like a funk jam and McCartney is absolutely at home can do it and it sounds amazing. And it's just this is the. Again, this is something he could access. I'm not sure that the other guys could. And not a lot of those people that came from the British Invasion could was being funky and so, yeah, that's Good Night. Tonight is, for that reason, super funky and amazing.
- [68:42]
Rob Collier
Yeah, that one is such a great bass line and it's sort of. It's almost like a follow up to his Silly Love Songs. Bass line. Great, like really, really groovy bass line. Big Barn Bed from Red Rose Speedway has a bass line I think is so cool. I've transcribed some of the ram bass lines. Too Many People. There's not bass in a lot of Too Many People. It just kind of comes in in these sections. But when it comes in at I guess the chorus, it has such a cool groove.
- [69:15]
Orion Salazar
It's that field. Yeah, that feel is beautiful.
- [69:18]
Rob Collier
Yeah. And then I was just listening recently to his album Memory Almost Full and was just like blown away at how cool the bass lines are on that album. And I think maybe he only plays bass on like two thirds of it. I think Brian Ra is playing on some of it. But McCartney's bass line. It's like the most active bass lines I've heard him play. 1980 maybe.
- [69:46]
Orion Salazar
There's that song. That was Me.
- [69:48]
Rob Collier
Yeah, that was Me.
- [69:49]
Orion Salazar
It's got some great stuff on it. I don't know if that's him. I'm assuming it is now.
- [69:53]
Rob Collier
I can't remember which songs. There were like a few in particular where it was just like this is like vintage McCartney just going for it on bass and. So cool to hear.
- [70:04]
Podcast Host
What instrument do you think he's using?
- [70:06]
Rob Collier
That's a good question.
- [70:07]
Orion Salazar
I think that that was around the time some young producer, I'm not sure if it's Memory Almost Full or new, is produced by Greg man, what is his name? He's a keyboard player. He plays with the Bird and the Bee like a famous LA guy. But I'm pretty sure that around this point somebody said please play this Hoffner again and we're going to get you the rain tone now with this technology. So I mean some of those. Yeah, go ahead.
- [70:29]
Rob Collier
I think that Elvis Costello had got him back into playing the Hoffner on the Flowers and the Dirk album. But then I don't know. I don't know if it was like his regular bass in the studio after that or if it was just he kind of occasionally came back to it. But I do just like picture him playing the Hoffner on the Memory Almost full album. But that's no proof at all.
- [70:52]
Podcast Host
I remember the five string one standing out in my memory when he was doing that. I think circa the 8990 tour.
- [71:00]
Rob Collier
Yeah, I think it was a Wal V A l bass. Yeah, yeah.
- [71:05]
Podcast Host
Was that the one that sold for a ton of money when it went for auction? I know there was one record breaking McCartney bass from that era that went for a lot of money when it like it set records.
- [71:15]
Orion Salazar
I think he played the bicycle on Free as a Bird and Real Love or at least three as a Bird has got a low B note. I think it does.
- [71:22]
Rob Collier
I think you're right.
- [71:23]
Orion Salazar
And it's just so strange to think of Paul McCartney playing a five string bass somehow.
- [71:28]
Podcast Host
Right.
- [71:28]
Orion Salazar
Though it shouldn't be, but yeah. Sounds good.
- [71:31]
Rob Collier
Yeah.
- [71:31]
Podcast Host
What if he ever played a hammer? Tom Peterson, the 10 and 12 and eight string basses. It's more of a rhythmic instrument rather than a lead instrument, I suppose.
- [71:40]
Rob Collier
Yeah. Seems like something he would have tried at some point. Like this is going to be a different sound. Yeah, yeah. But I don't know of any records in particular.
- [71:51]
Orion Salazar
You had the Yamaha, the Wall five string and Then any number of Fender basses and the Hoffner and Rick.
- [71:57]
Rob Collier
Yeah.
- [71:57]
Orion Salazar
Seem to be the ones that I know about.
- [71:59]
Podcast Host
You talked about before the White album, having that Fender sound on some of the tracks, but not all of it. Like Glass Onion specifically, being kind of a bright. More. What would be the word, really sort of cutting, almost entwistle. Yeah.
- [72:14]
Orion Salazar
Yes.
- [72:14]
Podcast Host
Trebly. Trebly bass.
- [72:15]
Rob Collier
Yeah. It has a kind of like. To my ears, it's like a clank. There's like a clanky sound. Not in a bad way that sounds like a bad thing, but there's just this kind of like heavy, bright attack. Almost like metallic sounding attack.
- [72:30]
Podcast Host
Percussive, like skelter.
- [72:32]
Orion Salazar
You can even hear a little buzz in there, you know, a little spring buzz, which gives it a completely different thing than the Rick or the Hoffner. But, yeah, it's those songs, especially on Glass Onion and Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me and My Monkey, that sound like the jazz to me.
- [72:48]
Rob Collier
Yeah. Yeah.
- [72:49]
Orion Salazar
And I think that bass also inspired him to do some adventurous stuff, especially those two tunes. Have a lot of those. We like funky stuff, but a lot of these slides. Quick slides.
- [72:58]
Rob Collier
Yeah, Yeah. I wonder.
- [73:00]
Podcast Host
What I just say is that how much the instrument influences what comes out of it.
- [73:04]
Rob Collier
I think it has a big impact because. Yeah. If you're playing something and it's like, this would have sounded good on the Hoffner and it's not working here. Like, yeah, you're probably not going to play it or. Yeah. If you get into like playing. And there's kind of a sweet spot in the neck where the tone is just. Just like so good. Kind of going to hang around in that part of the neck. I'm sure it had some kind of sound that like. Yeah. Brought something new out of him.
- [73:31]
Orion Salazar
Absolutely.
- [73:32]
Podcast Host
So I think we already know yours, Rob, but I'll ask the question to both of you now. Favorite McCartney bass lines. Speaking as guys who play bass are the ones that are like, wow, I wish I'd come up with that.
- [73:44]
Rob Collier
Yeah. I think I said Lovely Rita, my favorite. All time. Something is Up There, There. And Dear Prudence. I love Sexy Sadie. I love Penny Lane. I love. Now I'm just. I'm just gonna name all of the songs. Yeah. Especially those, those 67 bass lines. Those are. That's my favorite era. And a lot of my favorite bass lines are from that era.
- [74:07]
Orion Salazar
Yeah, me too. Actually. I would say that it's. I mean, there are. There are different things I like about different lines and different tracks. Some stuff Is more melodic and, like, beautiful and sort of compositionally amazing. Some stuff is more rhy, rhythmically exciting and, like, kind of unique. I love Baby, you're a Rich Man. You brought that up earlier because it's super funky and there's all this, like, pick muting. It's like pig funk, basically. And a lot of just. He's sort of going crazy and again on somebody else's song. Yeah, that era. I'm with you. 67, 68, 66. That era when he's got into the Rick and sort of. There's something special about that. I always loved you know my Name because just for Pocket. Not even. It's a relatively. It's a great part and moving part. Kind of like a walking baseline, like you said. But it's such a deep pocket for such a goofy song. It's such a. Apparently a throwaway song. This groove that they hit is like. It's beautiful. It's. And it's so funky. That's maybe one of my favorite ones for the rhythmic aspect.
- [75:10]
Rob Collier
Yeah, it's such a deep, like, fat groove.
- [75:13]
Orion Salazar
Yes.
- [75:13]
Rob Collier
Yeah. Like you said, for a silly song, it has. Has like. Yeah, just like the deepest pocket.
- [75:18]
Orion Salazar
They just lay back in the cut. It's greasy, you know. It's like super greasy for these white dudes from Liverpool.
- [75:24]
Rob Collier
Right.
- [75:25]
Podcast Host
Were both of you inspired by Paul to take up the bass when he could have taken up guitar?
- [75:31]
Rob Collier
Yes. Well, so I. I became a Beatles fan when I was 13. I saw Paul McCartney sing hey Jude on Saturday Night Live. It was a rerun in the song summer of 1993. I went from basically not caring about music to being absolutely obsessed with music. Like, overnight, I was just like, this song, this performance of hey Jude, like, reached through the TV and grabbed in this way that music never had before. And so I immediately was just, like, spending all of my allowance on Beatles tapes and reading Beatles books. And about the third. Third book that I read about the beat Beatles, I was reading for the third time about, like, them getting hit in the same way by rock and roll when they were teenagers. And, like, it hit them in this way where, like, they also just had to learn to play it. And I have this very vivid memory of, like, reading this third book in my bed and, like, reading this part about them learning to play. And I put the book down, like, went into the guest room, grabbed this guitar that was in the closet and, like, started learning to play guitar. And then I was so in love with the Beatles and that, like, yeah, I've got to Form a band. I've got to convince my friends to also learn to play guitar. And I think, like, one. One or two other friends had guitars. And I was, like, trying to talk one of them into switching to bass. I was like, we need a bass player. You need to switch to bass. And no one else was like, that committed. So I ended up switching to bass. But this was probably like, I think I had been playing guitar for a month. I was not a guitar player yet. So I bought a bass and started taking bass lessons and then started playing in bands and then went to school and majored in music. Then went to grad school and eventually earned a doctorate in music and all. Like, yeah, I can trace this whole thing back to McCartney singing Hey Jude on Essen.
- [77:35]
Podcast Host
What an amazing thing. You could point to the exact moment your life was changed.
- [77:39]
Rob Collier
Yeah.
- [77:39]
Podcast Host
And it was because of Paul McCartney.
- [77:41]
Rob Collier
100%. It was like, before that at least, but like 15 minutes before that, I was, like, thinking about sports. And then immediately it was like, only thing I cared about was the Beatles. And then that expanded to just, like, music in general. But, yeah. So it set me on this path to becoming a musician. I didn't make a decision that, like, Paul is my favorite, so I'm going to play bass. It was like, I can't talk anybody else into playing bass. So I guess I'm a bass player now.
- [78:11]
Podcast Host
Well, it's a bit of an echo of his story, isn't it?
- [78:13]
Rob Collier
100%. Yeah, totally.
- [78:14]
Orion Salazar
And isn't that pretty funny how it's always like that? It's always like, well, nobody wants to play bass, so you do it. Okay. But then you become a bass player and you suddenly discover this secret treasure trove of, like, not only an amazing instrument, but you realize you're kind of the secret captain of the band in a way. You're guiding the melodic part and the rhythm together.
- [78:34]
Podcast Narrator
Yeah.
- [78:34]
Orion Salazar
And so very quietly, you're part of the band leader position. It's just a wonderful thing to be. I'm sure he discovered that too.
- [78:42]
Rob Collier
Yeah, he has definitely talked about that. Like, how much. At some point he realized how much control he had over the music, being the bass player. And that was when he really embraced his role as bass player.
- [78:56]
Podcast Narrator
How about you?
- [78:57]
Orion Salazar
Yeah, it's similar to you. The Beatles informed my. All growing up. And I was hearing Beatles music since I was a kid. I'm older than you, I think. And I saw Wings Over America in San Francisco. In San Francisco. 76. My dad took me, and I just was very lucky. Like, That I inherited a bunch of records when I was a toddler. And there was. My parents were hippies, so my dad was a player, so there was a lot of rock and roll in my house growing up and a lot of shows, but it wasn't like, yeah, Paul plays bass, so I want to play bass. It was not like that. I was similarly. Nobody else wanted to play bass. Here, you're okay at guitar. All these guys are. We're all better than you do. This one, it's only got four strings. And then I got it. I'm like, wait a minute. This is actually pretty hip. So. But the beat, similarly, were the sort of, like, at the root of everything. The impetus that informed my knowledge and my vocabulary and just gave me the bass to build on and the love for music, for sure.
- [79:53]
Rob Collier
Yeah, that's awesome bass.
- [79:55]
Podcast Host
Everyone's second choice instrument, yet somehow the coolest.
- [79:59]
Rob Collier
Yeah, I mean, it's like, I play guitar, I can play keyboard a little bit, but I don't want to play anything else in a band. I briefly was a rhythm guitar player in a band about 15 years ago, and as soon as I had the opportunity to play bass in the band, I was like, yeah, I'm now the bass player in this band. Bass is my main instrument. It's the only one that I really want to play in a band.
- [80:25]
Podcast Host
What's incredibly moving to me is we're all different ages and yet none of us were there at the beginning. We all came into the story at different parts, yet it all transformed our lives in different ways. It got us individually all into making music to varying levels. And this passion for the Beatles led to this curiosity about all kinds of other music that might not have been on our path had not the Beatles sort of stirred that curiosity into wanting to know more. And with the Beatles, it just seems like it's bigger than music. You know, you learn about so much other stuff. Muay, the Beatles story and these little detours they took. You pick up this. You pick up this. You know, just an incredible vehicle. Vehicle for taking you all kinds of places you might not have gone otherwise.
- [81:09]
Rob Collier
Yeah, it shapes your life. Like my peer groups, since I became a musician, like, my friends have been musicians. Like, the people that I bond with are the people that I play in bands with. And now, like, we go to conferences and present about the Beatles and like, our friends are other people who present about the Beatles at these conferences. It's not just now it's all this. Yeah, yeah.
- [81:32]
Orion Salazar
Now it's all this shocked and stunned.
- [81:34]
Paul McCartney (Interviewee)
I Was working in the studio and there's a group there who's very into this tech techno stuff. And the bass player was up in the hospitality room and he got the call, come down and do your bass part. So he said, great, he's your big chance. Go on, have fun. So he goes down. He's back up in about four minutes. We said, well, that was quick. He must have got it in one take. He said they only wanted one note, Donk. And then they put it in the computer. He's been studying all those years to go donk.
- [82:04]
Podcast Narrator
Something about the Beatles Created and hosted by Robert Rodriguez, executive producer Rick Way. Title song performed by the Corgis.
- [82:15]
Podcast Host
Something about the Beatles is an evergreen podcast.
- [82:27]
Bass Player Demonstrator
Right, okay, bit of bass. Here we go. Headphones, click track bass My old Hoffner bass. My little baby. Come on, baby. The bass on this track is very simple. The part. The bass part is really simple. And it just basically goes. See, it's the G minor. It's following all the chords, obviously, pretty straight root notes, which is basically the notes of the chords. So it's kind of. I've got too much on my plate. Don't have no time. A G, C, Lama D minor, do, do, do, do C Waiting for D minor again. C, D minor. C, D minor, F chorus coming up. E minor, D minor, 2C. That's basically what happens. So I'll try it now. Try and lay it on those tracks where we've got the acoustic guitar and the drums and now a bit of bass. Okay, let's try it. Here we go. Come on, boy. The time that I thought would last My ever present past.
- [84:22]
Rob Collier
The things I.
- [84:23]
Bass Player Demonstrator
Think I did I think I think.
- [84:27]
Rob Collier
I did well the things I think.
- [84:30]
Bass Player Demonstrator
I did Win a war again.
- [84:36]
Orion Salazar
Was a kid.
- [84:43]
Bass Player Demonstrator
Okay, so that's it. That should be bass. And that's it. Very simple. You can do fiddly bits if you want. At the end there, I was tempted to myself. Would have been things I think I did when I was a kid, just on the E minor, But those things are up to you, you know, if you either want to keep the straight notes, it's very simple, or you're feeling adventurous, you can go up here on the E minor and sort of fiddle around a bit. D minor, see?