If you’ve listened to any pop, soul, rock, or blues record made in Memphis from the early 1960s to the present, the odds are the bass player was Donald “Duck” Dunn. Dock of the Bay, Hold On, I’m Comin’, many, many others. His syncopated style shaped bass playing for generations. He was also the bass player in Jake and Elwood’s band in The Blues Brothers where he uttered the immortal line “We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.” He died on Sunday. There’s a good remembrance here.
I once heard that Booker T and the MGs had, early on, to do all their backing in the dead of night at some studio in the boonies. Integrated bands in that part of the country at that time weren’t very popular…
I watched the Blues Brothers with my young children recently, and I guess I never realized who that guy was.
Probably shouldn’t admit to showing an R-rated movie to grade-schoolers, but I told them before that the movie’s good and important and fun, and I trust they are responsible enough not to use any of that language they’re about to hear. [I gave the eye that Aretha Franklin gives her husband, seemed to work for me]
Damned shame. If I recall correctly, Dave, you play jazz. Many people simply don’t understand the point of the bassist and drummer in a band. Some bands have “virtuoso” bassists. Think Jaco Pastorius, or Stanley Clarke.
But Duck was rock solid in the background. Darryl Jones does the same for the Stones. They can make or break a band.
We all go sometime, but a sad day for the music world.