What’s the basis of your sound?
I’ve always used gut strings, so that’s the beginning. My bass’s bridge is between a jazz and an orchestral cut—not flat but not too round—and I have pretty high action. I go for a big, fat bottom—just find the sweet spots on the instrument and dwell there.
What players inspired you?
Ray Brown, of course, and Bob Moore and Junior Huskey. When I moved to Nashville Bob gave me a lot of pointers—the way he pulls his strings, the left-hand positions, and advice like learning every song in every key. One of the most valuable things he taught me was learning how to play every upright bass you come in contact with—an Eb neck or a D neck, different string spacings—being able to make your sound from bass to bass.
Does his advice about pulling the strings contribute to your sound?
It really does. On Raising Sand there are a couple of tunes where I pull down toward the fingerboard to get more of a clicking sound, and on some of the slower tunes I play more on top of the strings for a sweeter sound. There’s one tune that’s all slap bass [“Let Your Loss Be Your Lesson”]. Most of that stuff I tried to steal from Junior Huskey, and I love the way Milt Hinton slapped bass. Mine is a combination of the two, but I want to have my own sound if I can.
How does your fingerboard hand contribute to your sound?
I do a Dixieland gig, and a lot of that music was done with tuba. So if I’m going for that sound, I try to pinch off the note with the right hand—deaden the string without slapping—and I immediately release the left hand off the fingerboard. Both hands have to work together.
CAN BE HEARD ON
Alison Krauss/Robert Plant, Raising Sand [Rounder, 2007]
The Time Jumpers, Jumpin’ Time [Crosswind, 2007]
T-Bone Burnett, The True False Identity [Sony, 2006]
CURRENTLY SPINNING
“Ray Charles—I could listen to him all day. On the early stuff the bass player was a guy named Edgar Willis—it was like he carried the band.”
GEAR
Basses Mid-1800s 7/8-size Tyrolean flatback (main bass); mid-1800s e-size German roundback; late-1930s American Standard
Strings All gut: Pirastro Pizzicato E, A; Gamut custom D, G
Studio sound RCA ribbon mic and Neumann U 47 on Raising Sand. “Most of time I use my RCA mic. I put it two to three feet away, just above the bridge on the treble side, facing between the ƒ-hole and the bridge. If it’s a bass-heavy room, I mic it right in front of the bridge. I also have an Altec-Lansing 639 ‘birdcage’ mic, which I used it on the Walk the Line soundtrack. It’s a little brighter-sounding—a lot of the old Johnny Cash stuff had slap bass, so we were going for more of a slap tone.”
Live sound David Gage Realist pickup through Ampeg SVT-6PRO with 1x15 and 4x10 cabs for Krauss/Plant tour