There may be no more crit­i­cal inter­play between two musi­cians in mod­ern music than that between bassists and drum­mers. As jazz bassist Chris­t­ian McBride put it in a recent NPR inter­view, “the bass and drums should work as one instru­ment. It deter­mines whether it’s funk or jazz or coun­try or rock ‘n’ roll. It all depends on what rhythms are com­ing from the bass and the drums that make a par­tic­u­lar music what it is.” In funk and jazz, these rhythm play­ers tend to get a lot more cred­it. Most people—even die hard fans—would be hard pressed to name one coun­try bassist or drum­mer. In rock and roll, we’re used to laud­ing lead singers and gui­tarists. And cer­tain­ly clas­sic duos from Jag­ger and Richards, to Page and Plant, Roth and Van Halen, Mor­ris­sey and Marr and a lengthy list of oth­ers each have earned their vaunt­ed places in music his­to­ry.

Yet as a fan, I’ve always been drawn to unsung bass and drum combos—like The Smiths’ Mike Joyce and Andy Rourke, Jane’s Addiction’s Eric Avery and Stephen Perkins, and many oth­ers in bands whose flam­boy­ant lead­ers tend­ed to over­shad­ow their rock sol­id sup­ports. This is not the case in many oth­er groups of super­stars. McBride gives us the exam­ples of Boot­sy Collins and John Starks in James Brown’s band, and bassist Sam Jones and drum­mer Louis Hayes from Can­non­ball Adderley’s ensem­ble. Today we look specif­i­cal­ly at some famed rock rhythm duos, and lis­ten in on iso­lat­ed tracks from some of their bands’ most well-known tunes. We begin with the absolute­ly clas­sic pow­er­house rhythm sec­tion of John Paul Jones (top) and John Bon­ham, whose grooves anchored the riff machine that was Led Zep­pelin. Just above, hear their push and pull on “Ram­ble On.”

As it turns out, Zep­pelin were big James Brown fans, and Jones has specif­i­cal­ly men­tioned the funk influ­ence on his play­ing. Jones and Bon­ham, in turn, have influ­enced thou­sands of rhythm play­ers, includ­ing per­haps one of the most famous of bass and drum duos, Rush’s Ged­dy Lee and Neil Peart. Just above, hear Lee’s fuzzed-out bass work in tan­dem with Peart’s expert time changes and break­downs in iso­lat­ed tracks from “Vital Signs,” a song from their ear­ly-eight­ies new wave-inspired album Mov­ing Pic­tures. Rush is cer­tain­ly not everyone’s cup of tea, but more rock and roll drum­mers than not prob­a­bly cite them as an influ­ence at some point in their careers. Though it wasn’t appar­ent to me in their hey­day, even such a min­i­mal­ist band as the Pix­ies had a Rush influ­ence, specif­i­cal­ly by way of drum­mer David Lover­ing. His locked grooves with bassist Kim Deal more or less defined the sound of the 90s through their influ­ence on Nir­vana, Weez­er, Radio­head, Smash­ing Pump­kins and count­less oth­ers. Hear their iso­lat­ed rhythm tracks from Doolit­tle’s “Wave of Muti­la­tion” below.

It’s hard­ly nec­es­sary to point out that per­haps the most famed rhythm sec­tion in rock his­to­ry comes from its most cel­e­brat­ed band. But Paul McCart­ney and Ringo Starr often get remem­bered more for their song­writ­ing and per­son­al­i­ties than for their rhythm play­ing. Ringo’s tak­en his share of unde­served flak for his no-frills style. I’ve always found him to be an espe­cial­ly taste­ful play­er who knows when to add the per­fect fill or accent, when to lay back and let the song dom­i­nate, and when to get out of the way entire­ly. Starr’s thought­ful drum­ming per­fect­ly com­ple­ments McCartney’s high­ly melod­ic walk­ing basslines—captured as well on the George Har­ri­son-penned “Some­thing,” below, as on any­thing else the band record­ed.

Again, it’s hard­ly nec­es­sary to cite the num­ber of bands influ­enced by the Bea­t­les, though it’s hard­er to name rhythm sec­tions direct­ly inspired by McCart­ney and Starr’s dynam­ic. Nonethe­less, their DNA runs through decades of pop music in all its forms. The oth­er three duos above have direct­ly inspired a more spe­cif­ic phe­nom­e­non of bands made up sole­ly of bass and drums. One such band, the UK’s Roy­al Blood, has won numer­ous awards (and praise from Jim­my Page). See them per­form a live ver­sion of “Fig­ure It Out” below.

Oth­er bands like Death From Above 1979 and Om have huge­ly devot­ed fol­low­ings. (See a dis­cus­sion of more bass-and-drum-only com­bos here.) With the suc­cess of these bands—along with the rise of elec­tron­ic dance music as a dom­i­nant form—it’s safe to say that killer rhythm sec­tions, so often over­shad­owed in rock and pop his­to­ry, have pushed past tra­di­tion­al lead play­ers and, in many cas­es, tak­en their place. I’d say it’s about time.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear Iso­lat­ed Tracks From Five Great Rock Bassists: McCart­ney, Sting, Dea­con, Jones & Lee

7 Female Bass Play­ers Who Helped Shape Mod­ern Music: Kim Gor­don, Tina Wey­mouth, Kim Deal & More

Iso­lat­ed Drum Tracks From Six of Rock’s Great­est: Bon­ham, Moon, Peart, Copeland, Grohl & Starr

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

“A beau­ti­ful way to per­form one of the world’s great musi­cal trea­sures.” The video above, and the accom­pa­ny­ing 58-char­ac­ter sen­tence, make up the last tweet from Oliv­er Sacks, the influ­en­tial neu­rol­o­gist who passed away ear­li­er today. The clip (orig­i­nal­ly high­light­ed on our site back in 2012) fea­tures 100 musi­cians and singers from the Orches­tra Sim­fon­i­ca del Valles, Amics de l’Opera de Sabadell, Coral Belles Arts, and Cor Lieder Cam­era per­form­ing what’s now the anthem of the Euro­pean Union — Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” from his Sym­pho­ny No. 9. It’s a pret­ty stir­ring per­for­mance, and cer­tain­ly a worth­while way to punc­tu­ate a Twit­ter stream. (Side note: Dr. Sacks start­ed fol­low­ing our Twit­ter stream sev­er­al years ago, and we still con­sid­er it a great hon­or, a high point in OC his­to­ry.)

You can read Mr. Sacks’ obit­u­ary here, and an appraisal of his intel­lec­tu­al con­tri­bu­tions here.

h/t @miafarrow

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

This is What Oliv­er Sacks Learned on LSD and Amphet­a­mines

Oliv­er Sacks Con­tem­plates Mor­tal­i­ty (and His Ter­mi­nal Can­cer Diag­no­sis) in a Thought­ful, Poignant Let­ter

30 Renowned Writ­ers Speak­ing About God: From Isaac Asi­mov to Oliv­er Sac­sks & Mar­garet Atwood

I recall with unchar­ac­ter­is­tic clar­i­ty the first time I heard the B‑52s. Forced on a youth-group ski trip by my par­ents, I arrived an angry thir­teen-year-old wan­na-be punk: mohawk, ripped jeans, patched leather jack­et, dis­af­fect­ed scowl, and feigned air of ado­les­cent cyn­i­cal world-weari­ness. Pop music, I had already decid­ed, was for suck­ers. The only sounds that spoke to me were loud, abra­sive, and delib­er­ate­ly unlove­ly. Then some­one in our dorm put on “Rock Lob­ster” and it blew my nar­row mind. Though the osten­si­ble pur­pose of this church-spon­sored vaca­tion was to stir up some Protes­tant piety, I came away con­vert­ed instead to the gospel of new wave. I cred­it my awak­en­ing to Kate Pierson’s oth­er­world­ly wail, Cindy Wilson’s throaty har­monies, and Ricky Wilson’s bizarrely tuned gui­tar.

Maybe it wasn’t quite that dra­mat­ic, but it was a deci­sive moment in my young fan­dom, after which I found myself seek­ing out the odd, angu­lar, jan­g­ly sounds I’d first heard on that B‑52s record—and find­ing them in John­ny Marr’s Smiths gui­tar work, every ear­ly R.E.M. album, and in more morose form, in The Cure, Psy­che­del­ic Furs, and count­less mopey British post-punks. What sur­prised me at the time was learn­ing how many of these bands arrived on the scene at the same time as the nas­ti­er, grit­ti­er bands that scored my angst-rid­den entry into cal­low teenage-hood. We’re famil­iar with the sto­ry of new wave bands like Talk­ing Heads and Television’s begin­nings at CBGB’s. But around that same time, in 1976, Georgia’s B‑52s got their start in the col­lege town of Athens. As one inter­vie­wee says—in the above short doc­u­men­tary on the South­ern art-rock scene that also birthed R.E.M.—“the B‑52s start­ed the music scene as we think of it.”

Tak­ing their sound from surf rock, 50s doo-wop and girl group har­monies, and a weird­ness that is Athens’ own, the B‑52s carved out a space for them­selves with­in music that had some­thing in com­mon with the Ramones except it was hyper-col­or­ful, thrift-store kitschy, and unapolo­get­i­cal­ly campy. Their warped take on 50s and 60s dance rock—complete with Pier­son and Wilson’s “B‑52” bee­hives—first broke out with “Rock Lob­ster” (a song John Lennon once cred­it­ed with influ­enc­ing his come­back). You can see them open with the song at the top in 1978 at Atlanta’s Down­town Cafe, just pri­or to the release of their debut album. (Stick around to watch the rest of the 28-minute set.) Fred Schnei­der, the band’s wry, flam­boy­ant front­man, intro­duces each band mem­ber with a series of quirky pseu­do­nyms. Above, they do my per­son­al favorite, “52 Girls”—with its pound­ing tom-tom surf rhythms and sung-shout­ed lyrics about “The prin­ci­pal girls of the USA.” Just below catch anoth­er ear­ly gig from 1980, at New Jersey’s Capi­tol The­ater.

The B‑52s plugged along through the 80s—suffered the loss of Ricky Wil­son to AIDS—then hit it very big on the pop charts with “Love Shack” and “Roam” from 1989’s Cos­mic Thing. For my mon­ey, though, noth­ing beats the glo­ri­ous joy­ful­ness of their debut, which sounds like the most fun any band has ever had mak­ing a record togeth­er.

Though the band has always been a high­ly col­lab­o­ra­tive ensem­ble, Kate Pierson’s huge voice came to shape their sound over the years. She would go on to record the torch song “Can­dy” with Iggy Pop and the ridicu­lous, love-it-or-hate-it “Shiny Hap­py Peo­ple” with her home­town peers R.E.M. Now, at 67, she’s putting out her first solo album, Gui­tars and Micro­phones. Lis­ten to the super-catchy title track above, and hear an inter­view with Pier­son on NPR here and anoth­er on WBEZ’s Sound Opin­ions here. For more on the B‑52s ear­ly years, see ret­ro­spec­tives on Dan­ger­ous Minds and Pitch­fork. You owe it to your­self to get to know this band. They may not change your life like they did mine, but they might just expand your under­stand­ing of pop music’s pos­si­bil­i­ties.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch the Talk­ing Heads Play a Vin­tage Con­cert in Syra­cuse (1978)

The Ramones in Their Hey­day, Filmed “Live at CBGB,” 1977

Blondie Plays CBGB in the Mid-70s in Two Vin­tage Clips

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

Image via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

There’s no short­age of Grate­ful Dead con­certs freely avail­able on the web. Indeed, head over to Archive.org and you’ll find hun­dreds of Dead shows, some going as far back as the 1960s. But when you start rum­mag­ing around, you’ll dis­cov­er that some nights were mag­ic, while many oth­ers fell far short. That’s why we can be thank­ful that Dick­’s Picks came along. Named after the band’s tape archivist Dick Lat­vala, Dick­’s Picks (released between 1993 and 2005) fea­tured 36 volumes/albums of Grate­ful Dead con­certs, all sourced from sound­board record­ings cap­tured on two-track mas­ter tapes. The record­ings, as Tony Sclafani notes in The Grate­ful Dead FAQ, gave every­one a chance to “expe­ri­ence what going to a clas­sic Dead show was like” — “to eas­i­ly access record­ings of leg­endary shows.”

Caught up in some Grate­ful Dead nos­tal­gia myself, I quick­ly real­ized that all 36 vol­umes of Dick­’s Picks are avail­able on Spo­ti­fy — at no cost. As much for my own musi­cal edi­fi­ca­tion as for yours, I’ve cre­at­ed a list below. (Some of you might have a beef with Spo­ti­fy, or want to own your own copies, so I’ve includ­ed Ama­zon links too.) You can reg­is­ter for Spo­ti­fy and down­load the free soft­ware here.

Dead fans will sure­ly argue over which Dick­’s Picks are the best. But, from what I’ve seen, Vol. 4 (above), Vol. 8, Vol. 10, and Vol. 12. offer great places to begin.

And although it does­n’t appear in the Dick­’s Picks series, you can find on Archive.org what’s often con­sid­ered one of the Dead­’s finest live record­ings — their May 8, 1977 con­cert in Bar­ton Hall, at Cor­nell Uni­ver­si­ty.

Also, if you’re look­ing for a good intro­duc­tion to the Dead­’s musi­cal career, lis­ten to this recent episode of the Sound Opin­ions pod­cast, com­ing out of WBEZ in Chica­go.

Enjoy.

• Vol. 1, 1993 : Tam­pa, 12/19/73 — Spo­ti­fy — Ama­zon
• Vol. 2, 1995 : Colum­bus, 10/31/71 — Spo­ti­fy — Ama­zon
• Vol. 3, 1995 : Pem­broke Pines, 5/22/77 — Spo­ti­fy — Ama­zon
• Vol. 4, 1996 : Fill­more East, 2/13–14/70 — Spo­ti­fy — Ama­zon
• Vol. 5, 1996 : Oak­land, 12/26/79 — Spo­ti­fy — Ama­zon
• Vol. 6, 1996 : Hart­ford, 10/14/83 — Spo­ti­fy — Ama­zon
• Vol. 7, 1997 : Lon­don, 9/9–11/74 — Spo­ti­fy — Ama­zon
• Vol. 8, 1997 : Bing­ham­ton, 5/2/70 — Spo­ti­fy — Ama­zon
• Vol. 9, 1997 : Madi­son Square Gar­dens, 9/16/90 — Spo­ti­fy — Ama­zon
• Vol. 10, 1998 : Win­ter­land, 12/29–30/77 — Spo­ti­fy — Ama­zon
• Vol. 11, 1998 : Jer­sey City, 9/27/72 — Spo­ti­fy — Ama­zon
• Vol. 12, 1998 : Prov­i­dence & Boston, 6/26 & 28/74 — Spo­ti­fy — Ama­zon
• Vol. 13, 1999 : Nas­sau Col­i­se­um, 5/6/81 — Spo­ti­fy — Ama­zon
• Vol. 14, 1999 : Boston, 11/30/73 & 12/2/73 — Spo­ti­fy — Ama­zon
• Vol. 15, 1999 : Eng­lish­town, 9/3/77 — Spo­ti­fy — Ama­zon
• Vol. 16, 2000 : Fill­more Aud, 11/8/69 — Spo­ti­fy — Ama­zon
• Vol. 17, 2000 : Boston, 9/25/91 — Spo­ti­fy — Ama­zon
• Vol. 18, 2000 : Madi­son & Cedar Falls, 2/3 & 5/78 — Spo­ti­fy — Ama­zon
• Vol. 19, 2000 : Okla­homa City, 10/19/73 — Spo­ti­fy — Ama­zon
• Vol. 20, 2001 : Lan­dover & Syra­cuse, 9/25 & 28/76 — Spo­ti­fy — Ama­zon
• Vol. 21, 2001 : Rich­mond, 11/1/85 — Spo­ti­fy — Ama­zon
• Vol. 22, 2001 : Lake Tahoe, 2/23 & 24/68 — Spo­ti­fy — Ama­zon
• Vol. 23, 2001 : Bal­ti­more, 9/17/72 — Spo­ti­fy — Ama­zon
• Vol. 24, 2002 : Cow Palace, 3/23/74 — Spo­ti­fy — Ama­zon
• Vol. 25, 2002 : New Haven & Spring­field, 5/10–11/78 — Spo­ti­fy — Ama­zon
• Vol. 26, 2002 : Chica­go & Min­neapo­lis, 4/26–27/69 — Spo­ti­fy — Ama­zon
• Vol. 27, 2003 : Oak­land, 12/16–17/92 — Spo­ti­fy — Ama­zon
• Vol. 28, 2003 : Lin­coln & Salt Lake City, 2/26 & 28/73 — Spo­ti­fy — Ama­zon
• Vol. 29, 2003 : Atlanta & Lake­land, 5/19 & 21/77 — Spo­ti­fy — Ama­zon
• Vol. 30, 2003 : Acad­e­my of Music, NYC, 3/25 & 28/72 — Spo­ti­fy — Ama­zon
• Vol. 31, 2004 : Philadel­phia & Jer­sey City, 8/4–6/74 — Spo­ti­fy — Ama­zon
• Vol. 32, 2004 : Alpine Val­ley, East Troy , 8/7/82 — Spo­ti­fy — Ama­zon
• Vol. 33, 2004 : Oak­land, 10/9 & 10/76 — Spo­ti­fy — Ama­zon
• Vol. 34, 2005 : Rochester, 11/5/77 — Spo­ti­fy — Ama­zon
• Vol. 35, 2005 : San Diego, Chica­go and Hol­ly­wood, August 1971 — Spo­ti­fy — Ama­zon
• Vol. 36, 2005 : Philadel­phia 9/21/72 — Spo­ti­fy — Ama­zon

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Grate­ful Dead’s “Rip­ple” Played by Musi­cians Around the World

Bob Dylan and The Grate­ful Dead Rehearse Togeth­er in Sum­mer 1987. Lis­ten to 74 Tracks.

The Grate­ful Dead Play at the Egypt­ian Pyra­mids, in the Shad­ow of the Sphinx (1978)

In the ear­ly sev­en­ties, at the height of their pow­ers, unfor­get­table hits seemed to tum­ble out one after anoth­er from The Rolling Stones, solid­i­fy­ing Jag­ger and Richards’ rep­u­ta­tion for ele­men­tal, imme­di­ate song­writ­ing that seemed to cut through more baroque stu­dio pro­duc­tions of the late six­ties and sev­en­ties and deliv­er the goods raw. As Bri­an Jones’ influ­ence waned, Richards’ dark, raunchy riffs took over the band’s sound, and even when Jag­ger’s vocals are near incom­pre­hen­si­ble, as in much of Exile on Main Street, his pecu­liar intonation—part fake Delta blues­man, part sneer­ing delin­quent schoolboy—gets across every­thing you need to know about the Rolling Stones’ ethos.

The imme­di­a­cy of the Stones’ record­ings is large­ly an arti­fact of their tri­al-and-error method in the stu­dio. Unafraid of last-minute inspi­ra­tion and unortho­dox tech­ni­cal exper­i­ments, they built songs like “Gimme Shel­ter” from inspired demos to pow­er­ful anthems over the course of many ver­sions and mix­es. We’ve told the sto­ry of that song’s last-minute inclu­sion of Mer­ry Clayton’s stir­ring vocal per­for­mance. Now, at the top, hear an ear­ly demo of the song lack­ing not only her voice, but Jagger’s as well—at least in the lead spot. Every­thing else is there: the tremo­lo-soaked open­ing riff, the haunt­ing, reverb-drenched “Oooo”’s. But instead of Jagger’s faux-South­ern drawl sud­den­ly break­ing the ten­sion, we get the much more sub­dued voice of Richards, pushed rather far back in the mix and sound­ing pret­ty under­whelm­ing next to the final album ver­sion.

It’s not that Richards is a bad singer—here he almost cap­tures the cadences of Jag­ger, if not the pro­jec­tion (we do hear Jagger’s voice back­ing his). It’s just that we’ve come to asso­ciate the song so close­ly with Jagger’s quirks that hear­ing any­one else deliv­er the lyrics is a lit­tle jar­ring. On the oth­er hand, Richard’s unadorned acoustic demo of “Wild Hors­es,” above, gets right to the heart of the song, sound­ing more like his friend Gram Par­sons’ mourn­ful ear­ly ver­sion than the lat­er 1971 release on Sticky Fin­gers. (Hear anoth­er acoustic demo here, with Jag­ger on vocals.)

These two tracks rep­re­sent rare oppor­tu­ni­ties to hear Richards take the vocal lead on Stones tracks, though he would begin releas­ing solo work in 1978 and front­ed his own band, the X‑pensive Winos, in 1987, assem­bled in trib­ute to his hero Chuck Berry. Just the year pre­vi­ous, the Stones released Dirty Work, a high point in an oth­er­wise cre­ative slump for the band. The album’s first track, “One Hit (to the Body),” became its sec­ond big hit, and you can hear a scratchy, lo-fi demo ver­sion, with Kei­th on lead vocals, above. A thread at the Steve Hoff­man Music Forums points us toward many more demos of Stones songs with Keith’s vocals, from out­takes and demos of Voodoo Lounge, Talk is Cheap and oth­er albums. Many of these record­ings show how much Richards was respon­si­ble for the band’s vocal melodies as well their sig­na­ture gui­tar tones and rhythms. Amidst all these demos—of vary­ing degrees of sound qual­i­ty and states of inebriation—one song in par­tic­u­lar stands out, and it’s not a Stones song.

Above, Richards’ deliv­ers a Bour­bon Street take on “Some­where Over the Rain­bow.” His qui­et voice haunts the song, again pushed so far back in the mix you have to strain to hear him at all as he trails in and out. The record­ing, from 1977, leaked in 2008, along with Richards cov­ers of oth­er stan­dards by Hoagy Carmichael and Per­ry Como. “The songs,” writes The Guardian, “fea­ture melan­choly piano, an even more melan­choly Keef and sound like he’s doing an impres­sion of ear­ly Tom Waits.” Fit­ting, then, that Richards would col­lab­o­rate with Waits in 2006, on a record­ing that sounds like he’d been prac­tic­ing for it his entire career.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Tom Waits and Kei­th Richards Sing Sea Song “Shenan­doah” for New Pirate-Themed CD: Lis­ten Online

The Rolling Stones Release a Soul­ful, Nev­er-Heard Acoustic Ver­sion of “Wild Hors­es”

Mick Jag­ger Tells the Sto­ry Behind ‘Gimme Shel­ter’ and Mer­ry Clayton’s Haunt­ing Back­ground Vocals

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

This week, 1,000 North Kore­ans wit­nessed the first live per­for­mance by a West­ern pop act on its soil. And it was per­haps a bit anti-cli­mat­ic.

The East Ger­mans got their first taste of West­ern rock in 1988 when Bruce Spring­steen played a mas­sive gig in East Berlin. (See video here.) The North Kore­ans had to set­tle for the Sloven­ian indus­tri­al rock band, Laibach. Accord­ing to The New York Times, their set includ­ed a “ ‘Sound of Music’ med­ley. A cov­er of the Bea­t­les’ ‘Across the Uni­verse.’ [And a] mar­tial-sound­ing ver­sion of the are­na rock anthem ‘The Final Count­down.’ ” You can watch short clips of the con­cert just below.

Laibach’s his­toric North Kore­an gig was appar­ent­ly arranged by Morten Traavik, a Nor­we­gian artist who pre­vi­ous­ly made the Inter­net gyrate when he released a clip of young North Kore­an accor­dion play­ers per­form­ing A‑ha’s 1984 hit, “Take On Me.” In 2012, Traavik met the musi­cians from the Kum Song Music School while trav­el­ing in North Korea. He told the BBC, “I lent them a CD of Take on Me on a Mon­day morn­ing. By the fol­low­ing Wednes­day morn­ing they had mas­tered the song, with no anno­ta­tion and no out­side help. It showed incred­i­ble skill.” And, says Traavik, it all just goes to show, “you can have fun in North Korea.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch 98 Kore­an Fea­ture Films Free Online, Thanks to the Kore­an Film Archive

Watch Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Voodoo Chile’ Per­formed on a Gayageum, a Tra­di­tion­al Kore­an Instru­ment

Pak­istani Musi­cians Play Amaz­ing Ver­sion of Dave Brubeck’s Jazz Clas­sic, “Take Five”