“We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.” Edgy and direct, this Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn line from the 1980 film The Blues Brothers is a fitting eulogy for the legendary bassist, who passed away on May 13 2012.
Born in 1941, Dunn put the music of his Memphis hometown on the map, first as a member of the Mar-Kays, and then as the lynchpin of Stax Records house band Booker T. & the M.G.'s.
The band – which included keyboardist Booker T. Jones, guitarist Steve Cropper, and drummer Al Jackson, Jr. – backed such artists as Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, and Wilson Pickett, and scored a number of hit songs under its own name.
On tracks like Hip Hug-Her, Soul Man, and Try a Little Tenderness, Dunn dug in with tight grooves, his gutsy tone and attack giving Stax tracks a gritty, down-home texture. He was never fancy, but he was always funky.
There are two enduring video documents of Duck at his best. The first, Stax/Volt Review: Live In Norway 1967, captures the M.G.'s at the band's peak, backing Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, Eddie Floyd, and the Mar-Kays in a brilliant performance. The second is The Blues Brothers.
Dated as the film is in many ways, the musical performances are timeless, with Dunn, Cropper, and an incredible band backing front men Jake and Elwood Blues (John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd).
Toward the beginning of the film, the band's recording of She Caught the Katy (And Left Me a Mule to Ride), a tune written by Taj Mahal and James Rachell, greets Jake Blues as he is released from prison.
Following two bars of guitar intro, Dunn and the band enter at the pickup to bar 3 for a series of hits. He then digs in with a I-V-I subhook slathered with greasy slides and tasty staccato articulation.
In the disco-tilting octave walkup to the IV chord (00:44), note how Dunn bounces off the open D for a ‘boom-chicka’ rhythmic lilt. Under the Em7,5 chord at 00:47, he lets loose with a lick that craftily touches upon all the essential notes in the chord: E, G, Bb, and D.
In the bridge at 01:41, Dunn goes with a straightforward, syncopated approach, building to the third verse with some big quarter notes.
That same less-is-more aesthetic pops up with his laid-back feel at 02:42. Note also how he changes his licks ever so slightly at 03:17. Dunn prods the groove under the V chord at 03:37, and sneaks an ear-catching lick at 03:52 before fading out.
Of course, there's no single tune that captures all of the wonderful things ‘Duck’ did on bass guitar. But She Caught the Katy is a great start.
Have fun digging deeper into his massive catalog of grooves. And as he so sagely advises in The Blues Brothers, “If the shit fits, wear it!”
