{"id":18119,"date":"2020-02-05T05:30:25","date_gmt":"2020-02-05T10:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=18119"},"modified":"2020-02-07T10:56:30","modified_gmt":"2020-02-07T15:56:30","slug":"jerry-jemmott-the-groovemaster-part-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2020\/02\/05\/jerry-jemmott-the-groovemaster-part-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Jerry Jemmott: The Groovemaster (Part 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part Two<\/a>…<\/i><\/p>\n

Jemmott knew how King’s music usually sounded, but he also knew why people booked him as a session bassist. \u201cPeople usually call me to do something differ<\/i>ent<\/i>,\u201d he emphasizes. \u201cSo it was a matter of watching his hands. Whatever he did, I did something different. It was always that blues triplet rhythm, and I\u2019d just take it and break it down into either 16th notes or even 8th notes to go against it. And it worked.\u201d The resulting recordings \u2013 also featuring Al Kooper, Hugh McCracken, Herb Lovelle and others \u2013 make up the second side of King’s studio\/live hybrid LP, 1969’s Live & Well<\/i>.<\/p>\n

In 1969, Jemmott worked with another King. His electric bass playing is all over the pair of LPs Freddie King cut for Atlantic subsidiary Cotillion, Freddie King is a Blues Master<\/i> (1969) and 1970’s My Feeling for the Blues<\/i>. Today he winces at just how prominent his bass is in the mix for tracks like King’s horn-laden remake of his classic, \u201cThe Stumble.\u201d<\/p>\n

Due in part to his hearing problems, Jemmott’s intention with the bass has always been about \u201cbeing felt and not really being heard,\u201d he says. \u201cBut the engineers and the producers, they crank it up. When I create a line, it\u2019s not meant<\/i> to be out front. It\u2019s meant to be supportive. That\u2019s why I picked the bass in the first place. If I wanted to be out front, I would\u2019ve picked to play the horns!\u201d<\/p>\n

Jemmott has always liked being in the background. \u201cNot being noticed so much, but still being part of the music: that\u2019s what attracted it to me,\u201d he says. \u201cThat was the emotional appeal for me to play the bass.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Around the same time, Jemmott played on sessions for Aretha Franklin. In fact he would appear on five of Aretha’s studio albums released between 1968 and ’73. \u201cMy sweetheart, my idol,\u201d he says, clearly stirred by memories of the singer. \u201cI was exposed to her when she was singing jazz on Columbia, and I knew she was on fire then. And then, when she signed with Atlantic and put out that string of hits, it was like, ‘Oh, yeah, oh, yeah!’\u201d<\/p>\n

Jemmott says that it was \u201ca dream come true to be able to support her cause.\u201d He had been called in on a session by producer Jerry Wexler, who warned him, \u201cYou might play, you might not.\u201d The primary musicians were all Muscle Shoals cats, the team who had played on her previous string of hits.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got to the studio in the morning, and they were playing this one song,\u201d Jemmott recalls vividly. \u201cBut something was misfiring. I couldn\u2019t understand why they couldn\u2019t get into her groove; she played the same thing over and over again, and they still couldn\u2019t match it up to make the song come alive.\u201d The problem, Jemmott realized, was that they had the style all wrong. \u201cThey were trying to make it into rhythm and blues, but I heard right away: she was singing country.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a few hours of the band’s fruitless efforts, Jemmott says he was approached by Wexler. \u201c’Go in there and see what you can do,’ he said. I played a country bass line. Tommy [Cogbill] picked up a guitar and started playing bluegrass. Everybody got it right away. And two takes later it was over.\u201d The song cut that day was \u201cThink,\u201d a massive hit (#1 R&B, #7 pop) and Aretha’s seventh Top 10 hit in the U.S. \u201cIf you listen to it,\u201d Jemmott says, \u201cyou\u2019re hearing straight-ahead country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Around the same time, Jemmott was called for a Wilson Pickett session, to cut a song called \u201cDeborah,\u201d released in 1968 as an album track and the b-side of \u201cI’m a Midnight Mover.\u201d He recalls the session, led by producer Arif Mardin. \u201cSomebody didn\u2019t show up on a date in Atlantic, so I got a call at ten in the morning to come down to the studio. I got there about 11:30 or so, and there were like 20 musicians waiting for the bass player to show up!\u201d He listened to the players do a quick rundown of the song. \u201cI read the chart, and I figured I could do something with that. They released the song the very next week in Italy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pickett was pleased with Jemmott’s work. \u201cThe next year I got a call to go down to Muscle Shoals and do the Hey Jude <\/i>album,\u201d he says. \u201cI love the song; I love the Beatles\u2019 version of it. Basically, I just funked it up from what they did. I kind of incorporated the vocal leads into my bass part as we got into the rideout, to take it to another level.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jemmott explains that his process of creating the right bass part \u2013 as he did on \u201cHey Jude\u201d \u2013 is a mix of planning and spontaneity. \u201cIt happens very quickly,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s premeditated, knowing that it\u2019s going to work. But I don\u2019t get the idea until I\u2019m faced with what\u2019s put in front of me in that moment. I come up with a solution rather quickly, and sometimes it grows as I go along. Things just happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says that for him, music is a very organic process, one he likens to baking. \u201cYou have the ingredients in front of you, but you have to put them in a certain order. The temperature of the oven has to be right, the ingredients have to be perfect to have the cake come out without falling out and flopping. And music is much the same way, only it happens in over a period of time, not like baking for an hour. The beginning, middle, and<\/i> the end have to happen in three minutes and 20 seconds. You have to see all this as you\u2019re doing it and realize you have to save something for the end, have something for the middle, and be able to make it interesting at the beginning [so that people] listen and are engaged enough with it to stick around.\u201d<\/p>\n

Click to continue<\/a>…<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part Two… Jemmott knew how King’s music usually sounded, but he also knew why people booked him as a session bassist. \u201cPeople usually call me to do something […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18129,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,41,69],"tags":[4091],"class_list":["post-18119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-funk","category-interview","category-soul","tag-jerry-jemmott","cat-31-id","cat-41-id","cat-69-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18119"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18297,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18119\/revisions\/18297"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}