Tag Archives: John Deacon

It’s all about the Bass

What is a band without a Bass player?

Not much really when you think of it. Yet bass players are nearly always underrated. Most people will be able to name a list of singers, guitarists, drummers and even keyboard players when asked, but they will struggle with listing bass players.

The bass is real the base of music, it is the foundation together with the drums. The vocals, guitars and keyboard are the rest of a song., the melody that makes a song recognizable. But without a solid foundation the melody would collapse. The bass is the most important part of that foundation.

I could mention 1000s of bass players but I will limit it to a few of my favourites.

Robbie Shakespeare-Sly & Robbie

Mark King- Level 42

John Deacon-Queen

Lemmy -Motorhead(performing with Metallica)

Peter Hook-Joy Division and New Order

Tina Weymouth-Talking Heads

Suzi Quatro

Chuck Wright-Quiet Riot

John Entwistle-The Who

James Jamerson was an American bass player. He was the uncredited bassist on most of the Motown Records hits in the 1960s and early 1970s (Motown did not list session musician credits on their releases until 1971), and is now regarded as one of the most influential bass players in modern music history.

Crazy Little Thing Called Love- The story behind it.

This is a deviation from my usual heavier historic history blogs. Just a bit of lightheartedness at the start of a hopefully better 2021.

This is the story behind ” Crazy little thing called love”

Although ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ is a simple song it does actually demonstrate how genius Freddie Mercury was. He wrote the song while Queen were recording The Game in Germany. He wrote it while taking a bubble bath in his room at the Munich Hilton.

’Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ took me five or 10 minutes. I did that on the guitar, which I can’t play for nuts, and in one way it was quite a good thing, because I was restricted, knowing only a few chords,” Mercury shared in a 1981 interview with Melody Maker. He wrote it as a tribute to Elvis.

Freddie did know though that Brian May probably would not like the song, because of it’s rockabilly style, he once said in an interview So he took the song to the studio shortly after writing it and presented it to Roger Taylor and John Deacon. The three of them,their then new producer Reinhold Mack, recorded it at Musicland Studios in Munich. Later on Brian May added his part.

The song was released on 5 October 1979 in the UK and on December 7th in the US. It would become Queen’s first number 1 hit in the USA.

sources

YouTube

https://www.songfacts.com/facts/queen/crazy-little-thing-called-love