It’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to let my hair down in a soul / funk jam but I had that opportunity this afternoon with a few other musicians I’ve come to know. Listening back to my rough recording, it has got a little way to go before anything becomes public but it had its moments.

It was also nice to find that not all the funk has left my fingers. Various songs were introduced but the majority were tracks that I covered back in the day with LovesJones (probably about 2002 – 2004?) (I still host a very out-of-date website for the long-defunct group). For example, we listened to a bit of “I’ll Take You There” by The Staples Singers and I had both the main riff and the little bass solo under my fingers pretty much straight away. I remember that took me a lot longer back in the day but the combination of hours playing it in rehearsals and on stage and the subsequent two decades of honing my skills with all sorts of other tracks, are paying off!

For this one, I used my Jaguar bass and a new patch I’ve created on my Helix combining the long-standing Ampeg B15 model and the fattening effect of the new Radial Bass DI model. Along with the flat wound strings on the Jaguar, it is a very suitable sound for the style.