“If you couldn’t play that solo, you weren’t a bass player – you couldn’t get a gig”: How Bob Babbitt laid down an epic first-take solo on this under-appreciated Motown classic – with the help of a damp household sponge
“If you couldn’t play that solo, from that record you weren’t a bass player – you couldn’t get a gig,” says bass ace Nate Watts during the film Standing in the Shadows of Motown. “He’s telling the truth,” Ralphe Armstrong chimes in. “If you couldn’t play Babbitt’s solo, you weren’t doing nothin’!”
Bob Babbitt needs little introduction to bass buffs, having notched up session credits on over 200 top-40 hits, in addition to playing on such historic tracks as Inner City Blues by Marvin Gaye, Signed, Sealed, Delivered by Stevie Wonder, Never Can Say Goodbye by Gloria Gaynor, War by Edwin Starr, Midnight Train to Georgia by Gladys Knight & the Pips and Tears of a Clown by Smokey Robinson.
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