Entertainment For Lively Minds
The best session players
Posted by DougieJ on 23 October 2009 - 11:35pm.
As I'm currently in a major Steely Dan phase, it got me pondering on session players.
I must admit to a large degree of ignorance on this point, but I've done a bit of homework and now know about the Purdie Shuffle:
"Remember that. Not 'explain', but ah'm a splane to ya...". Brilliant.
I know people like Jeff Porcaro and the aforementioned Bernard Purdie played on Dan records, among a host of others. Any other individual players you'd recommend seeking out?
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I'm even more ignorant
than you Dougie on session players. Weren't Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell session players before becoming The Experience?
Where do you recommend I start with Steely Dan? I've heard the obvious singles but not a lot else.
Well...
you could do worse than something like Pretzel Logic, from 1974, from which this touching track is taken:
http://open.spotify.com/track/51w9GNjVOm18Gr2cVowzqX
But as I'm a relative Dan novice myself, I defer to the respected elders of this parish...
The Dan...
Try Aja first, then Can't Buy A Thrill
I concur
but the other way round
Buy the box set
Do yourself a favour - buy the box set - Citizen Steely Dan. I looked it up on Amazon. You can get a second hand copy for 23 quid.
It's only £15.99
on iTunes. It used to be £7.99!
Thanks to you all
I'll go the actual box set over ITunes, I do love a sleeve note and a lyric sheet if available!
Dave.......
This is an excellent, and much better value, alternative to the box-set.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002CGS00C/ref=s9_sima_gw_s0_p15_i1?p...
Most of these guys
...esp. Jay Graydon - one of the best guitar solos ever
Session drummers:
- Steve Gadd (the most precise feel drummer in the Western world)
- Simon Phillips (the most technically accomplished drummer in pop music)
- Clem Cattini (played on almost every British pop single in the 60s; along with Big Jim Sullivan and Little Jimmy Page. Claims to have played on 45 number 1 hit singles)
- Sly Dunbar (the reggae session sine qua non
- Vinnie Colaiuta (currently playing in Jeff Beck's live band)
Simon Phillips' drumming
on '801 Live' (Phil Manzanera/Eno, '76, just been reissued) is AMAZING.
Larry Carlton
Probably the first call session guitarist in the mid-70s. A couple of examples of his soloing are 'In France They Kiss on Main St', the opening track on Joni Mitchell's 1975 album 'the Hissing of Summer Lawns', and 'Kid Charlemagne, the first track on the Dan's album "The Royal Scam".
Steely Dan have been playing some US dates recently, and were joined by Larry Carlton at one show, where he played the 'KC' solo pretty much note perfect.
here's someone's footage of it:
if you like
all that wonderfully constructed sound of California - James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Carole King, Crosby & Nash etc - you'll have heard the work of these guys who appear as a unit or as individuals on a host of albums of that kind - particularly on those released by the Asylum label - and sunsequently with many of the leading artists of New Country like Reba McEntire and Faith Hill
Danny Kortchmar, guitar
Craig Doerge, keyboard
Leland Sklar, bass
Russ Kunkel, drums
They were known as "The Section" - and I believe made some albums themselves under that name.
David Lindley
And let us not forget David Lindley, amazingly sympathetic side man with jackson Browne and all of the above, on lap steel, fiddle, guitar and about 20 other instruments. One of my all time musical heros. The JB live concert with Lindley from 73 which someone posted a while ago is sensational and well worth seeking out.
Bernard Purdie...
makes drums sing. And by rights he should be everyone's favourite musician because he's obviously a wonderful dude as well as the master of rhythm.
Drums
Dave Mattacks' pedigree is quite astonishing.
I love Eric Gale's guitar playing....
subtle, nuanced, utterly distinctive and beautiful. He contributed numerous wonderful moments to Paul Simon's criminally neglected 'One Trick Pony' album.
Some of my favourite session players...
...all appear on one of my all time favourite albums: Beat & Soul, released by The Everly Brothers in 1965. Guitars: James Burton, Glen Campbell, Sonny Curtis; bass: Larry Knechtel; keyboards: Leon Russell; piano: Billy Preston; drums: Jim Gordon.
I'm always banging on about this album. Sorry.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beat-Soul-Everly-Brothers/dp/B0009A6MVC/ref=sr_1...
Larry Knechtel
maybe it was noted here that he died recently. I may have missed it. Anyway, his most notable achievement was playing piano on Bridge over troubled water. He won a Grammy for the arrangement on that song too.
Larry Knechtel
Yes, I think it was discussed on the podcast.
So little effort, so much funk
He didn't play on "Funky Drummer" (that was Clyde Stubblefield), but Dennis Chambers is the funky drummer:
I love that Drummerworld site
just seeing and hearing magicians of rhythm like Purdie, Gadd, Mason et al do their thing is amazing.
Also - there's a great audio clip of the drum track from "Fool in the Rain" there. Shows the subtlety and swing in Bonham's play as well as the sheer power
Booker T & The M.G.'s
were technically session players, as they were the "house band" at Stax through most of the 60s.
Booker T. Jones - organ
Steve Cropper - guitar
Donald Dunn - bass
Al Jackson jr - drums
Besides their own records you can hear them on Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, Wilson Pickett, Rufus Thomas, among others, and see them in The Blues Brothers (minus Jackson, who sadly died in the mid seventies).
See also The Funk Brothers
Motown's house band.
Tommy Tedesco.
I used to read his instruction columns in Guitar Player in the early 1980's. Sometimes I understood bits of them and once I could play a bit of one of them.
He is, or was (he sadly died in 1997) regarded as the most recorded guitarist of all time, not so much on records but on soundtracks. His abilities as a one-take session man were legendary.