THE MASTERS Sly & The Family Stone, Graham Central Station Larry Graham Can You Handle It? ‘THANKS TO THEFUNKFANS AT WARNER Bros Records, one ofthe best placesto expe rience or revisit Larry Graham's landmar ‘bass playing ison the recently release r rospective The Best of Larry Grahame and Graham Central Station, Vol. 1. (The liner notes promise a Volume 2) The 11 cuts coverthe nine-year period between 1974 and 1982; during the last three of those years, Graham was asolo artist reaching #1 with hismillion-slling ballad, “One ina Milion ‘You The restofthe tacks reveal Graham's diverse influences: blues and gospel;ero0n crs ranging from Johnny Hartman to Ray ‘Charles; such '50s phenoms as Elvis Pres ley and Chuck Berry; doo-wop music; and desepe te ite, Me the 60s rock/Tunk impact of endmate Sy Stone and guitar god Jimi Hendrix. Bass wise, Graham thumps his way from the slippery, simple line on the slow dance “Is I: Love?" to the multi-bass-overdubbed, effects- drenched, furious funk of “Now D-U: Wenta Dance” The examples shown here are all taken from the Hest of collection, ‘Example 1 isthe opening five bars of ‘Hair; BP readers ean contrast this line witha transcription of TM. Stevens's cover version, from his album Boon! [Polysta Japan}, which speared in June "96. Gre- ‘ham’s originsl psc is grungier, with more variations inthe line throughout the track. (Of interest in bars 1-5 are the staccato feel and the classic Graham filin bers 4-5. Also notable isthe harmony, which likeso many funk songs) contains an embiguous Srd;here, the lone chord seems to fluctuate between 7, Em, and E749 tonalites. Example 1a ‘occurs atthe 5:07 marke and repests eight times, forming a sor of second breakdown section before the inal chorus. The two-bar phrase jumps out at you because Graham doesn't play on the one (the downbeat on the first beat of exch bar). Asfor the unison ‘octaves in bar 1, they may actually be the result of two bass parts overdubbed Example 2 prosents Graham in & pure pop setting, with the four-bar intro/verse figure of *Can You Handle I" Notice the chromatic notes in bar 2 and Larry's useTHE MASTERS ‘throughout of chord tones other then the downand dirty here,turningasimpleclimb: Alright” and alludesto Grahem’s Oskland/ root, 5th, and 7th. The line still has plenty ing-octaves figure into a slick part, thanks Tower Of Power style 16th-note-based funk fofpunch-especialy in bars 3 and 4, which to his trademark slides into the notes on side. Note the opening slide from G to A contain & coo] “scoop” on their first beats. the downbeats and ghostnote thumps on and the vintage Graham octaves at the end Example 2a shows the repeating two-bar the upbeats, ofeach eight bar phrase. After thisgrooveis phrase from the choruses. Graham gets Example 5 line occurs at 1M8 into “Ie introduced, the track rides out on i. ee dene Soot oe) & ene 108 romeo @ BASSPLAYER.COM SLAP MASTERS | 9THE MASTERS Example 4 shows the first 12 bars of “The Jam," Lacry's'60s inspired lead bass/ slap bass duel. Following the opening till and piekup notes, Greham provides two bars of melody followed by two bars of ‘groove, Note the numerous hammer-ons, pull-offs, slides, bends, and other lad-mel ‘dy devices, Among the hippest: the down: ward slide on beat three of bat 6; the slow whole-step bend from A up to B in bar 9 land the vicious vibrato on the last best of, bar 10. Jammin’! [WHEN YOU THINK OF LARRY GRAHAM'S bass playing with Sly & the Family Stone, ‘what naturally comes to mind? Could it be ‘that persistently swinging, short long pulse, exemplified by the thumb thumping, fuzz bbass-doubled “Danceto the Music’ line from Dance to the Music? Could it be the one note thump geniusof "Everyday People"? Or the spanky octave slap Ex. 1] from “Thank You Faletinme (Be Mice Ell)” both from Greatest Hits? ‘When Larry himself thinks of his bass work with Sly, only one thing comes to sind: “My mother, Dell Graham. 1 hadn't listened to any bass players when Itook up bast with her when I was sbout 15, and 1 ‘went straight from playing with her o pl ing with Sly. I considered myself guitar player-my heroes were Clarence ‘Gate 10 | suapm \ Dance To The Music! mouth’ Brown, Chuck Berry, and B.B. King and 1 always thought I'd go back to fuitar. So my only res! bass influence was the way my mother esrred basslines with her le hand on the piano. A Tot of things she played went into my ear and my heert, and influenced me Ister ss 8 bass pleyer” ‘Though Lary rarely used the normal fin serve playing (which he calls “overhand”), ‘her's much more to his lines than straight forward thumb-slaps For example, when he played octaves on parts like the min verse line of Are You Ready” (Ex.2) hed slide into bboth octave notes together, then maintain a bottom pulse wile plucking syncopated fir er popped accents “Itsike two ines coming into one? saysLary. "That's the kindof thing you have to do as a drummer to keep the ‘bass drum going with the snare. Remember, RS BASSPLAYER.COM 1 played drums before I played guitar” Stl, fon the quick-tompo track “Underdog” (A Whole New Thing), one ofthe Family's first singles, Larry showed just how dexterous he could be with thet thumb, Larry's busy line cruises through the lively verse changes [Ex 5 in pointed contrast o the chorus's long- held dribble fingered tremolo nots. "Wanna Take You Higher" from Stand) has all the clements of a great Sly & the Family Stone song-high-energy rhythm, a recognizable rif, and vocal shout-outs from various band members-but it also encep- sulates the quintessentil elements of Lae 1's syle. Alter the intro rff-where Lar z's snarling fuzz tone ives apt voice to bar 2's sneering Matted Sth-the line goes Into a short-long pulse (Ex. 4a]. But first, the rhythm gets weird, as anyone who's ever tried to work this ine out knows. The secret'sinbar3'sskipped beat, and knowing where to expect the vocals to come inon the very nest downbeat. How did the band ‘come up with that? "Sometimes when you play live, things happen? Larry laughs. Aer the chorus, when most of the band drops out to sing “Boom -shaka-Jake-laka’ Larry reduces the short-long pulse to &one-string, ghostflled bounce (Rx. 4b) that perfectly ratches Greg Erico'sup-down drumming Listen closely and you'l hear multiple bass tacks in the recording, including the eho ris’ fuzz-bass swoops up tothe b7. ‘What does Larry think when he listens tothese albums now? “They sound just ike yesterday to me. We try to keep this music alive, 0. I's part of me, and I love them just ts much now as I did then” SM