[ l i q u i d . f u n k : l a r r y . g r a h a m ]
[ t e x t . o n l y . v e r s i o n ]
by Bert Cielen
Bert Cielen previews
the latest album from the man once described as 'the most influential
bassist nobody knows' -- Larry Graham
Imagine: you're seventeen years old, and you're in a band with your
mother -- The Dell Graham Trio. You're playing in small clubs around California's
Bay Area during the early 1960s, and your repertoire consists of cheesy
pop ballads. And then . . .
'One club we played at had an old organ sitting onstage. I found a way
to pump the bass footpedals, while playing the guitar and singing at the
same time. This gave us a full sound. Then one night, the organ broke
down. And without its bass, everything sounded kind of empty, so I decided
to temporarily switch to bass guitar, to fill in the bottom end.'
'I definitely didn't want to keep on playing the bass . . . I never
took the time to learn to play it properly, because I didn't see myself
as a bass player. I just plucked the strings with my thumb and fingers,
like on a guitar. I never bothered to learn the normal right-hand technique,
with two fingers over the top.'
When Dell Graham decided that the band would be just Larry and herself,
Larry worked on incorporating the drum parts on the bass. The rhythm of
his plucking replaced the beats that a snare drum would normally play.
'It was the only way I could get that rhythmic sound. Over time, I got
it down pretty good, but I wasn't thinking in terms of creating anything
new. I was just trying to do my job -- to provide as much of a foundation
as I could.'
This is how funk bass was invented. This is the story of Larry Graham.
Bootsy Collins: 'Everybody kinda tried to take the credit, but no, it
was Larry Graham. It was definitely Larry Graham. He was doing with the
bass what, at that particular time, nobody else was even thinking about.'
Fast forward to 1998. In an overcrowded New York club some 2000 people
have gathered to witness a concert by 'New Power Soul'. It's unclear who
or what they can expect until showtime, which isn't until very late --
it's long after midnight when the band finally gets up on stage. Among
them are three of Black music's greatest artists: Chaka Khan, Larry Graham
and The Artist. They start jamming and don't stop until it's early morning,
in the meantime joined by two other pioneers -- George Benson and Doug
E. Fresh.
While The Artist's reputation has received some severe blows in the
past couple of years, one thing you gotta credit him for: he takes care
of his musical godfathers. For instance: when George Clinton was down
on his luck (and pursued by the B.I.R.S.) The Artist offered him a lucrative
record deal on his Paisley Park Records label that paid for his tax debt.
But while The Artist's involvement in George Clinton's two Paisley Park
albums was marginal, his contribution to Larry Graham's album is likely
to have been far greater, although certainly not as ubiquitous as it has
been with nearly every other associate album. This time round the words
'collaboration' and 'co-written' are being used.
"GCS 2000" could turn out to be an interesting excursion: throughout
his career The Artist has rarely played 'straight' funk, even if he intended
it. His music was always a mixture of influences and somehow even his
most straightforward songs include surprising sidesteps. For the first
time in his career, The Artist seems to be taking a trip down memory lane
to the music that influenced him while growing up.
Larry Graham of course did not solely influence The Artist -- his unique
percussive plucking and thumping approach to playing bass changed music
forever. The technique became commonplace in funk, permeated popular music
during the 1970s, and was standard practice by the early 1980s. Today
it is a major component in musical genres as diverse as rock, dance, R&B
and jazz fusion. Larry himself remains modest about it: 'The thing is,
I never saw myself as revolutionary. All I was doing was what sounded
good to me. But it has become an accepted way of playing the bass, to
the point where people take it for granted. Most of the young kids you
see doing thump-and-pluck don't even know who I am! I never intended to
revolutionise the way to play bass. This kind of thing always happens
because circumstances force you to improvise on the spot.'
Interestingly, Larry's 'revolution' could just as easily have never
reached our ears. When Sly Stone was putting together his next band, The
Stoners (who would later be renamed to the far superior Sly And The Family
Stone) he didn't intend to hire a bass player: he was going to play that
instrument. But when a caller to his radio show kept insisting he check
out Larry Graham, he changed his mind after seeing him perform.
The rest is history, as they say. Before 1968 was out, Sly And The Family
Stone broke through internationally with "Dance To The Music", the song
that introduced Larry's revolutionary bass playing to the world with the
words 'I'm gonna add some bottom, so that the dancers just won't hide'.
They went from success to success: their liquid funk topped the American
pop and R&B charts three times each over a five-year period in the late
1960s and early 1970s, and gave them four million-selling singles and
five gold-certified albums. Their Woodstock appearance is legendary.
But by 1972 Sly And The Family Stone were falling apart at the seams.
By the year's end he and Sly had a falling out and Larry left. While he
didn't leave with plans of starting his own band, he ended up doing just
that. He started producing Hot Chocolate, a Bay Area club band. 'I was
going to be their producer and songwriter. One night we played at a club
in San Francisco. The place was packed, and on the last song, I sat in.
Something clicked, and the whole place went nuts. It was obvious that
I had to be in this band.'
Graham's breakaway band, Graham Central Station, was hot property, and
even became Warner Bros' first R&B signing! Later the band would also
give the company its first gold album by a Black group, as well as its
first R&B No. 1. Musically, Graham Central Station emulated the mix of
soul and rhythmic funk of Sly And The Family Stone. But Graham was ahead
of his time again, pioneering the use of drum machines at a time most
other musicians considered them mere toys. The band had a fabulous live
reputation and were one of the era's flashiest live attractions.
They started off with the excellent "Graham Central Station" (1973).
The majority of the material on the album was composed and arranged by
Larry Graham, as would be his practice on the group's six subsequent albums.
Interestingly, the album features cameos by several Family Stone members
using pseudonyms -- Sly didn't condone session work.
1974's "Release Yourself" was the first of many albums to be inspired
by Larry (and several members of his band) becoming a Jehovah's Witness.
While their conversion generated some great music, it was also a drawback
for GCS as a major live attraction, because it wasn't able to capitalise
on its in-concert popularity. More importantly, it lost touch with a large
section of its audience, mainly due to Graham's increasingly religious
lyrics.
Larry Graham disbanded his group in 1980 to embark on a solo career
. . . as a sultry romantic bass-baritone crooner in the style of Isaac
Hayes, Barry White or Teddy Pendergrass. This change in musical direction
surprised many of his fans, even though Graham wasn't new to the genre.
After all, he had performed ballads when playing with his mother's trio,
and his first contribution to Sly And The Family Stone had been his treatment
of "Let Me Hear It From You" on their first album. 'I got into ballads
when my mother and I were working together. She would always make me sing
ballads. She passed on a couple of years ago, and when she died in my
arms, I was singing ["One In A Million You"] to her. It was very touching.
To her, it was kind of like, It was very touching. To her, it was kind
of like, "I told you, I told you to sing those ballads". That's what the
record was to her. My grandmother, though, she kinda liked the funky stuff!'
Both his first two solo efforts -- "One In A Million You" (1980) and
"Just Be My Lady" (1981) -- featured Top 10 hits, but after 1981, the
hits were few and far between. Three more solo albums followed, but there
was so little interest in them that the final one -- "Fired Up" (1985)
-- was released only in Japan.
In the meantime Larry had become a respected songwriter and session
musician, playing on albums by people as diverse as Bette Davis, Aretha
Franklin, Stanley Clarke, Tyka Nelson (The Artist's sister!), El DeBarge,
George Benson, Santana and Eddie Murphy. But the general public forgot
about Larry, much like they did about other pioneering musicians -- such
as keyboardist Billy Preston, guitarist Jimmy Nolen or drummer Clive Stubblefield.
As one journalist once put it: 'Graham may be the most influential bassist
nobody knows.'
When The Artist started putting more emphasis on his bass playing capacities
in 1994-95, he re-discovered his roots along the line and started playing
several of Graham's songs in concert: "The Jam", "Hair", "I Believe In
You", "Tell Me What It Is" (Though strangely never "It Ain't Nothing But
A Warner Bros. Party"!)
People started noticing Graham again and his resurrected Graham Central
Station -- now including several of the original members from The Family
Stone -- started a world tour. They played to mixed crowds, always bringing
the house down. It was perhaps not so surprising then that Graham and
The Artist eventually shared a stage.
Says Larry Graham: 'Graham Central Station was on a US tour with Sinbad,
Earth Wind And Fire, and Tina Marie when I met up with The Artist in Tennessee.
We were at the amphitheatre and he was at a larger venue. He invited us
to come and jam with them at the after party at a club in town. We did
and that was the beginning.'
Inevitably, The Artist (then 39) and Larry (51) ended up in the studio
together. This northern summer we will see the release of their joint
efforts on Graham Central Station's "GCS 2000" (NPG Records). It will
be Larry's first album featuring new material in a decade. Let's hope
this extraordinary meeting of two funk giants will be well worth the wait.
Copyright 1998 Bert Cielen, email: bvh10000@hotmail.com Photography
copyright of Andre Zimmerman, azi_planetfunk@msn.com