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BassPlayer.com >> This Month >> Tiran Porter On The Doobie Brothers’ “listen To The Music”
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Tiran Porter On The Doobie Brothers’ “Listen To The Music”| September, 2007 Stand up and stretch out, ’cause it’s bouncing time! Grooves don’t get more feel-good than the Doobie Brothers’ “Listen to the Music,” from 1972’s Toulouse Street [Warner Bros.]—and according to Doobie bassist Tiran Porter, you’ve gotta feel it to play it. “It’s a happy song, so the bass has got to bounce,” says Porter, who tracked the part at Warner Brothers Studios in North Hollywood. “Those sessions were really fun,” Tiran recalls enthusiastically. “There I was, in a band with a recording contract! Before we cut Toulouse Street, we were still playing local bars. I remember first hearing ‘Listen to the Music’ on the radio heading up I-280 to San Francisco. I had to pull over so I wouldn’t crash!” Though there are a few melodic runs that punctuate the bass line’s straightahead root-5 motion, this line is mostly about feel and focus; when a sexy sus chord-stab pops up in bar 6’s beat two, Porter keeps his eyes on the road, plowing forward with his loping, root-based line. Tiran kicks up the boogie with a tasty fill in the seventh bar of the nine-bar cycle (bars 15 and 24), and drops another slick lick at bar 38. “Joe Osborn is one of my biggest influences,” he shares, calling out the legendary ’70s session man. “A lot of these fills are straight-up Joe Osborn, playing melodic bridges from chord to chord.” The track captures the kind of raw energy that powered the band through the ’70s. As you strap on and plug in, be sure to relax and have fun with this one—after all, we’ve got to let the music play! Where's The Sheet Music?!Much of the sheet music that Bass Player publishes is copyrighted material, licensed from the artists to run only in the printed version of the magazine. Bass Player continues to offer the explanatory text of these lessons online, but in order to get the complete song transcriptions and other bits of licensed sheet music, you need to have a copy of the magazine. Sure, you could run down to the local music shop or corner store and pick up the latest issue of Bass Player, but why not subscribe today? It's easy, cheap and you'll never miss another lesson! |
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