Songs In The Key Of E

According to Nathan Watts, Stevie Wonder prefers the keys of B major (“You Are the Sunshine of My Life,” “Sir Duke,” “As,” “Do I Do”) and E minor (“Superstition,” “I Wish,” “Higher Ground,” “Ribbon in the Sky”)—not to mention other flat keys—because they’re comfortable for his voice. It’s therefore extremely convenient that Nathan has always tuned his bass down to E (EADG), inspired by Jimi Hendrix. These excerpts from Nathan’s classic Wonder bass lines are tabbed down a half-step, as he played them. So drop your tuning—and your E inhibitions—and dive in!

Ex. 1 shows the B pentatonic unison riff of “Sir Duke.” Nate’s tuning required him to bend up at the 20th fret of his ’74 Fender Precision to get the high E at the end of bar 2. Ex. 2 shows the two-bar verse/chorus ostinato of “I Wish.” Listen for Nathan’s subtle, swung ghost-note pickups throughout, as well as his in-your-face slides at 1:02, 2:51, 3:18, 3:27, 3:32, 3:36, and 3:45.

Examples 3a–c are taken from “Do I Do,” Nathan’s ten-and-a-half-minute bass tour de force and an all-time bottom classic. Ex. 3a shows the basic verse, transition, and breakdown groove; listen closely to beat three in bars 1–3, as Nate changes the eighth-notes to a dotted eighth and 16th in most of the verses. Also delight in his fills over the bar 4 V chords throughout—no two are the same. Ex. 3b is from the bridge, a series of three climbing I-IV cycles featuring Nathan’s free-flowing fills over the IV chord. Here, at 1:59, several Watts signatures are in place, including his use of the root-5-octave shape, with an added 9th in bar 1; Jamerson-like syncopation in the first half of bar 2; and chromatic approach notes from the 7th up to the root and from the 9th down to the root in the back part of bar 2. Finally, Ex. 3c shows Nathan’s spontaneous slapped lick at 9:57. Hinting at the relative-minor tonality (G# minor), it’s a potent predecessor to Bakithi Kumalo’s similar slapped (and tape-reversed) lick on Paul Simon’s “You Can Call Me Al.”