Photo by Erich Francois
“When I hear other bass players playing like me,” says Larry Graham—the funk god who invented and popularized the electric-bass slapping-and-popping technique with Sly and the Family Stone in the late 1960s—“I just think, ‘There’s another one of my children!’”
That’s a lot of kids. The technique— heard in megahits such as “I Want to Take You Higher” and “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)”—won Graham a page in music history and went on to become a cornerstone technique for players from Stanley Clarke to Bootsy Collins, Marcus Miller, Les Claypool, Flea, Doug Wimbish, and Victor Wooten, each of whom has spawned his own fanatical following, thus exponentially increasing Graham’s influence. Indeed, although Graham prefers to call the technique “thumpin’ and pluckin’,” it’s no overstatement to say that his playing has impacted the world of electric bass with the same force and universality that Jimi Hendrix’s did for the electric guitar.
Graham has been leading his own Graham Central Station band for nearly four decades now, and his first album in more than a decade, Raise Up, proves the legend hasn’t slowed down a bit. With newly recorded versions of GCS classics like “It’s Alright” and “Now Do U Wanta Dance,” as well as fresh new tracks like “Throw-N-Down the Funk,” Raise Up both frames the breadth of Graham’s legacy and demonstrates his band’s potent live sound. In addition, the album features cool cameos by players such as Raphael Saadiq and Prince—who plays drums, keyboards and backing vocals on the title track, and lays down liquid lead-guitar tracks on “Shoulda Coulda Woulda.” Throughout, GCS churns out funk fire and finesse, with Graham dialing up fuzzy, phased tones in spots, and longtime guitarist William Rabb and blazing new drummer Brian Braziel turning in dazzling performances on a furiously funky cover of the Stevie Wonder classic “Higher Ground.”
“I’m very fortunate,” says Graham. “All of our players were raised on my music, and at the same time they’re very open to progression. So they can play the old stuff as close to the originals as possible, but when it’s time for where we’re going next, they’re all right there.”
We recently spoke to Graham, 66, about his pioneering playing and the influence he’s had on the world of bass guitar. Like many veterans who’ve been at it their whole lives, he’s at the point where gear and tone settings are secondary or even tertiary to feel and vibe. He prefers to let his recent music speak for itself, but he was more than happy to talk about the cataclysmic funk that one inspired player with fantastically attuned hands and ears can deliver.
You get a really full-throated
tone on the new album. How
do you capture your sound in
the studio?
I close-mic the amps in the
studio—because I want that
amp sound—but I still record
direct, as well, because I want
the cleanness and the power
and the punch from the direct
sound. Once I record them, I
blend the two by ear to make
it sound the way I want it. It’s
different, live: I don’t mic the
amps onstage, although I do
send a direct signal out of the
back of two of the amps to the
mixing board.
What were you trying to
accomplish with Raise Up?
I intended it to be a complete
piece, like a book, with a great
beginning, a body of content in
the middle, and a great conclusion.
The idea was to create a
complete journey. That’s why
I wanted to include some of
the early GCS stuff, as well as
the current stuff. It’s also why
I wanted to include Prince—because of this close connection
between him and me—and also
Raphael Saadiq, being out of
Oakland, and Stevie Wonder,
being such a close friend and
having done so many things
together. I think it really says
what I’m all about. If you were
to pick up a book and read
about me, that’s what it would
sound like!
Can you tell us a bit about
your songwriting process?
A lot of it’s just singing the
parts into a tape recorder before
I even get a chance to sit down
with the instrument. Sure, if
I’m at an instrument—say, a
guitar—I’ll play the chords,
like I did when I wrote “Ole
Smokey,” which is a guitar-type
tune. Songs like “Today” or
“Just Be My Lady” or “Hold
You Close” are things I wrote
on the piano. A song like
“Hair” is obviously built around
the bass, so it was written on
the bass. “Got to Go Through
It to Get to It” is built around
a pretty intricate drum beat,
so in that case the beat came
first. I’ve been blessed to have
learned quite a few instruments,
and though I’m not a master
of those instruments—no
one’s going to ask me to be the
drummer in their band—I can
lay down the parts I hear in my
head, and many times I’ll even
keep those parts in the final
recordings. If I record something
at home that works great
and I can’t seem to duplicate it,
I’ll keep that, too. I played guitar
before the bass, and I played
the drums before that—so, I’m
not locked into any one method
of songwriting. However [the
song] comes, I’m going to move
forward from that.
Over all these years, you’ve
steadfastly stuck to calling
your revolutionary technique
“thumpin’ and pluckin’.” Let’s
talk about why you like to
make that distinction.
Well, it really is thumpin’ and
pluckin’! You can give it another
name, but it’s still thumpin’
and pluckin.’ When you hit
the string with the side of
your thumb, you’re thumpin’
it more than slapping it, and
when you’re poppin’ that G
string, like I do on “Thank You
(Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin),”
you’re really pluckin’ it. Y’know,
for people who aren’t musicians,
I can understand why they don’t
understand that—and they can
call it anything they want, as
long as they’re referring to the
same technique. I’m sure that
in the future, some new names
will get added—I’ve heard
“pop bass,” and “chopper bass,”
which is what some people call
it in Japan. There’s a whole list
of names, depending on where
you live, but when you see and
hear it, it’s all the same thing.
Larry Graham lays down the funk with Sly and the Family Stone at the Woodstock Festival in 1969. Photo by Jason Laure (Frank White Photo Agency)
Has the style you developed
way back in the ’60s changed
much over the years?
My technique is fundamentally
the same as it was back in the
late ’60s, because my heart
hasn’t changed—and when I
play, I play from the heart. Of
course, you grow in your understanding
of harmony, your
grasp of different feels, and you
benefit from exposure to other
people’s music. I mean, since I
came up with this style, we’ve
all lived through so many different
genres and styles, and the
way that I play the bass has now
spread throughout all genres of
music. So, my style is basically
the same, but everything I’ve
experienced as a person, as a listener,
and as a player all comes
out in my playing now.