Guitar Gear Forum

I got on a little Boston kick lately.. 1st two albums.
Really well done.
Anyhow I noticed how great the BASS PLAYING was on them.
If youve never noticed, give it a listen focusing on the bass.
Tom says he played bass on them ...as well as most guitars & keyboards.


So.. Tom played some keys early on, & gets on guitar after joining a band @ 24 yrs... Its not like he grew up playing bass, or even played it in their band.

Ok, as a guitar player, you grab the bass, write & play the parts & play them. I know most guitar players just want some low end to back up their guitar. I like great bass players, the likes of Geddy & whatnot, who play the bass as a separate fucking instrument. So when I grab the bass, Im trying to do unique lines to ad complexity to the music. But alas, Im a guitar player, & hard as I try, Im still doing nothing close to a great bass player, like those slick little tight transient notes, plus timing is a bitch. So, my playing ends up more like another guitar player with a few different notes thrown in.

The deal is, if Scholz played bass on those albums, hes not only one HELL of a bass player, hes underappreciated as such, & probably figured it all out wway too easy. That or he had a real bass player come in, since he recorded it, paid em well & kept quiet about it.



Isolated drums & bass:
[video]https://youtu.be/MXxve4utQ4U[/video]

it doesn't matter but I see your point , we may never know all the ghost musicians used on all of our favorites and that can be a problem if say your favorite Guitarist best solo ever turns out to be a studio gun . Tom is a Genius though and could certainly pull it off I think . One of my favorite bass players is Jimi Hendrix . His basslines are just so .. Jimi And John Paul Jones plays better bass with his feet then just about anyone since Bach .

I hear ya & agree on all that. & yeah, freakin John Paul Jones... one of my favorite. I didnt even know Jimi played bass, Ill have to give it a listen.

Hell yeah, the bass lines on the first 2 Boston albums are perfect. The mix is amazing, and you can clearly hear everything. Every drum and cymbal, all the bass notes, all the layered guitars, and all the vocal harmonies.

If you like Tom, he did a real interesting show on Nova (PBS)

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYXgfzVjrTw&index=4&list=PLgliHXKb6yMOPa9iAa9rdB-WtuVfthVII[/video]

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZaK8INEwq8&list=PLgliHXKb6yMOPa9iAa9rdB-WtuVfthVII[/video]

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVWVxKVTwDo&index=3&list=PLgliHXKb6yMOPa9iAa9rdB-WtuVfthVII[/video]

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZaK8INEwq8&index=1&list=PLgliHXKb6yMOPa9iAa9rdB-WtuVfthVII[/video]

The Jamerson Theory is that "it's all about feel" in bass lines, and the deduction from the string of hits Jamerson flatly improvised on shows that a bassist can be THE hitmaker. Dee Murray for Elton John is another example in a different style of song.

Scholz has an excellent sense of syncopation (Jamerson's secret), PLUS he knows how to write a hook. So when I listen to a song like Rock and Roll Band, what I hear is a bouncy toe-tapping bass groove (*), and also one hook after another.

First there's the little skipping lick between verse and bridge
the drop and RE-modulating up a step at the end of the bridge, with a dramatic vocal doubling it
the doubled guitar lick at the start of the chorus
the sing-along lyrics of the chorus
ANOTHER modulation upward in the chorus
a yeahyeah yeah hook
and an air-drums hook

How could that damn song help but be a hit ? I've got hooks stuck in me everywhere. Many of Boston's other songs are similar - hooks every few seconds. This I think is the secret to Scholz's bass playing. Using the bass as the foundation for his many hooks.


(*) the bassline in Elton's "Saturday Night's All Right For Fighting" is similar to the Sholz bassline for RnRB in that it *immediately* yanks the listener into an upbeat toe-tapper groove. Excellent examples of "driving the bus."