Having played on literally thousands of studio sessions before her disenchantment with the scene led to a “selective retirement” from recording in 1970, hardly an hour of airtime passes without hearing Carol Kaye's low-register contributions to the golden age of pop. Her credits are enough to humble even the greatest names in music.
That's her on the Beach Boys legendary Pet Sounds album, on records by Ray Charles, Glen Campbell, Sonny & Cher, the themes from Mission: Impossible and M*A*S*H, scores for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Thomas Crown Affair – and those aren't even a fraction of her sprawling discography.
“I'll never forget the thrill of learning her bassline to the Bill Cosby Show theme,” Nathan East told Bass Player. “Once I learned it, I was going around impressing all my friends! Carol has been a major contributor to the world of bass and I don't know where we would be without her.”
Kaye's session career began in December 1957, not as a bass player but as a jazz guitarist, after attracting the attention of music mogul Bumps Blackwell. Impressed by her chops at LA's Beverly Caverns jazz club, Blackwell invited Kaye to play on a recording session for a young singer he had recently discovered – Sam Cooke. Over the next five years, her Epiphone Emperor guitar was to adorn records by Bobby Darin, The Ventures, The Ronettes and The Beach Boys.
It all changed in 1963 when Hollywood's first call bassist, Ray Pohlman became unavailable for a Phil Spector session, leaving the “wall of sound” master to persuade his guitarist to fill the vacant bass slot.
Embracing this opportunity with total commitment, Kaye gave the instrument a new voice and within two years found herself at the top of her specialist tree.
Join us as we list the 10 basslines that prove Carol Kaye is a true bass genius.
1. River Deep – Mountain High - Ike & Tina Turner (1966)
Ike and Tina Turner's most successful single, River Deep, Mountain High is a prime example of Carol Kaye’s syncopated pick technique. “I pick the way you tap your foot,” Kaye told Bass Player. “Downstrokes on the downbeats, upstrokes on the upbeats – and I use my wrist as a pivot.
“River Deep Mountain High was cut at Gold Star and tons of people came to watch. There was a crazy amount of musicians on the session and I was one of four bass players. There were two acoustic basses, a Dano and me on Fender.
“Tina was quiet as usual before singing; she was really nice, but I always thought that Ike had the creative arranging talent, even though he was a little wild.”
2. Wouldn’t It Be Nice - The Beach Boys (1966)
Kaye's wave of work with Brian Wilson firmly shored up her place in bass history. Like the rest of Pet Sounds, Wouldn't It Be Nice – which peaked at No, 8 in July 1966 – was recorded at Western Studio No. 3. Kaye played her P-Bass through her Fender Super Reverb 4x10 combo.
The syncopated bassline supports Wilson's contention that Kaye's bass playing taught him how to create a stronger beat that made his music “easier to tap your foot to.”
3. The Beat Goes On - Sonny & Cher (1967)
Recorded at Hollywood’s Gold Star Studios on December 13th 1966, The Beat Goes On is credited to arranger Harold Battiste, yet, according to Kaye, her bouncy bass lick, which replaced the original walking bassline, rescued the entire session.
“I mean, it was a nothing song, and then I found a bassline that kind of made it. But you could say that about all of those songs. About 95% wouldn't have been hits without us.”
4. Good Vibrations - The Beach Boys (1967)
Perhaps Kaye’s most well-known bassline, Good Vibrations saw Brian Wilson use up 90 hours of tape from 17 separate recording dates with LA’s top session players. “In all we took 36 hours to cut Good Vibrations. We knew it was a big deal, so we didn’t have a problem with the long hours.
“Brian had all the sounds in his head. He knew what he wanted and wrote out the bass parts for me. They were written crudely, but we could read it. Lyle Ritz played the lower string bass part.”
On the out-takes from the Good Vibrations sessions Kaye can be heard playing a fuzz bass part. “That didn’t make it onto the released hit version, though; it was just another experiment that Brian wanted to try.”
5. Wichita Lineman - Glen Campbell (1968)
Inspired by the isolation of a telephone-pole worker he saw on the Kansas-Oklahoma border, Jimmy Webb wrote Whichita Lineman in 1968 for country singer Glen Campbell.
“At one point, Jimmy Webb stopped me and had me play some fills,” said Kaye. “Then it was decided that I should start off the song. So that’s what you hear: me on my bass, playing this little bouncy part that introduces the number.”
6. Sloop John B - The Beach Boys (1968)
Sloop John B is a Brian Wilson arrangement of a traditional Caribbean folk song. The bassline that Kaye plays is in parts deceptively simple though some of the movement is in counterpoint to the sung melody.
The song is in Ab major and the range goes down to an E, below the stave – it sounds as if the bass on the record has been detuned by a semitone and the bassline played in A. It’s a perfect study for learning to read 8th note rhythms.
7. Feelin’ Alright - Joe Cocker (1969)
Check out Kaye’s creative spark on the chorus of Feeling Alright. Note how she uses the chromatic passing tone B in bar 2, and emphasizes the Eb on the F7 chord in bar 4. Kaye rarely plays the same line twice, even though the song only uses two chords!
“This was with Paul Humphrey on drums and Artie Butler on keys. Artie started out the riff, and Paul and I joined in. We got such a groove. The whole thing just rolled. Before you knew it, we were locked in beautifully.”
8. Hikky-Burr - Quincy Jones (1971)
The theme for The Bill Cosby Show, Kaye kicks off Quincy Jones’ Hikky-Burr with a meaty open E, which she lets ring beneath an upper-register double-stop sliding figure, setting the tone for four minutes of top-notch blues-funk.
“I remember only one or two takes. Q turned me loose to do what I wanted to – that's what they wanted. Hikky-Burr is one of my faves because it was with great musicians, working for one of my fave people, Quincy Jones.”
9. I Was Made To Love Her - The Beach Boys (1973)
Kaye has long claimed that the hit bassline on Stevie Wonder’s I Was Made To Love Her was wrongly attributed to the late James Jamerson. “It has been said that it was cut in Detroit with James Jamerson on bass, but that's simply not true.
“Stevie's original cut was done by Armin Steiner at either his Formosa garage or International Sound where most of the late '60s Motown records were made. I played an improvised bassline, with the final riff high up in unison with the horns. I was really pulling out all the stops!
“Many people have tried to duplicate the feeling of that bassline, but they try with fingers, and not the pick style I played. When Brian asked me to play on The Beach Boys' version, he requested that I kept to what I'd done for Stevie.”
10. The Way We Were - Barbra Streisand (1973)
Taken from Barbra Streisand’s fifteenth studio album of the same name, The Way We Were was recorded entirely live in December 1973.
“It took 33 straight takes until I ignored the request from the musical arranger Marvin Hamlish to stick to the simple part. I changed the written part on the 33rd take, which gave it some energy. I started to make up basslines all over the place!
“It was electric when I looked up and saw Barbra in the singing booth holding a high note and our eyes met across the room. Drummer Paul Humphrey looked at each other and we knew this was the take.”
