http://www.bass-musician-magazine.com/General/bass-musician-magazine-detail.asp?article-id=807578261

Relix Magazine, April/May 2009

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: Berry, Lamar & Woody
by Oteil Burbridge

It’s been a real honor, pleasure, and challenge to hold down the low end for the Allman Brothers Band for the last 11 years. Fortunately I had the rock-like shoulders of Berry Oakley, Lamar Williams, and Allen Woody to stand on. They were each so different from each other but they all possessed that combination of strengths that you need to be an improvisational musician. First, you need physical command of your particular instrument. Secondly, you need command of the harmonic and rhythmic traditions that you are dealing with, be it gospel, blues, jazz, bluegrass etc...Third, you need a strong sense of melody which is the beginning of composition, which is the beginning of improvisation. Most importantly though, is that personal fearlessness and humility that allows a musician to embrace his own uniqueness, to be himself in front of an audience, to reveal their true spirit. Most are lucky just to get just the first two.

Berry Oakley was a composer, not just a bassist. Listen to the bass lines he crafted in songs like “Stand Back,” “Don't Keep Me Wondering,” “Leave My Blues At Home,” “Every Hungry Woman,” “Melissa.” These are not just "bass grooves;" they are melodies that provide a groove as well as a counterpoint to the vocal melody. Like you see with McCartney and Family Man, it’s not even the same song if you change the bass line. Berry's sense of melody and composition gave him the ability to apply the same concept to improvising. Berry Oakley was also a guitarist so he carried that mindset with him in his approach to the bass. In the spirit of the times he refused to accept the rules and traditional boundaries of the bassist’s role in music, and often departed from the normal path during the solos and jams. As Duane and Dickey developed their melodic themes in their solos Berry was listening and responding with an equally spontaneous counter melody. They were like a flock of birds or a school of fish in the improvisations. Berry is the Book of Genesis for all bassists who want to learn about what it means to play bass in the ABB.

Lamar came more from an R&B and jazz background but yet he still played with a pick in the ABB, with the exception of “Pony Boy” which he played on upright bass. He had that same great command of his instrument, understanding of rhythm and harmony, and sense of melody. Songs like “Come And Go Blues,” “Jessica,” “Southbound,” and “Can't Lose What You Never Had” are testament to this. He tended to stick to the groove in long solos more than Berry. Butch says that Berry was more like a third guitarist, but of Lamar he states, "When Lamar showed up, he was always at home, and you could count on him to be there. That freed me up to go away for awhile, and play what I wanted. I think it gave both of us more freedom on the drums, and allowed us to create more." He also added a jazz feel sometimes like you hear in songs like “High Falls” with its pronounced Latin jazz flavor. Some of Lamar's more adventurous work can really best be heard in Sea Level, a side band that he was in with Jaimoe and Chuck Leavell. The important thing here is that Lamar played with confidence and command in the face of filling some extremely big shoes, giving much needed stability in a very trying time, and all without being a mere copy of Oakley.  

Woody shared the same daunting task that Lamar did but times two. (I don't want to discount David Goldflies who is a consummate bassist, but all of the pre-Allen Woody ABB songs that live on in ABB live shows today come from Berry and Lamar). Woody was such a force of nature that there was never any question that he would be a copy of his predecessors. God truly shattered the mold when he made Allen Woody. He has such heaping helpings of all those necessary qualities that I mentioned above. His personality was so much bigger than real life and that was truly reflected in his playing. He knew that on the one hand you had to be true to Berry and Lamar but that you have to put your own stamp on things or else its not really improvising, not really composing. Like Lamar, most of my favorite work of Woody's is actually with Gov't Mule. He was actually the hardest one for me to ever try to "copy yet make my own" when I had the pleasure of playing with Gov't Mule. Technically I could do it, but the attitude...well if you knew Woody personally then you would know that it’s impossible to even get close. Woody's spirit was so strong that you realize there's a gaping hole bigger than you could have ever imagined after he was gone. If you doubt me then please direct your attention to exhibit A, the first 15 seconds of Gov't Mule's "Blind Man In The Dark.” The defense rests. 

If I had to pick one word to describe the dominant feature of their roles in the ABB, Berry's would be "revolution" for the way he refused to be bound by the conventional rules of bass, Lamar's would be "foundation" for the rock like musical stability that he provided when the band so desperately needed it in the wake of Duane and Berry's deaths, and Woody's would be "spirit" for the enormous injection of spirit that he gave the ABB when they needed it so badly to comeback after many years off. They were all complete musicians to me. They merged technique and a vast knowledge of their traditions and imbued it with their huge spirits. The proof of the size of their spirits is in the fact that 40 years later I am blessed to pay tribute to them nightly on stage. It’s all very humbling.

"I'm personally really excited about this because I know there are so many folks out there that can't make it to NYC for the Beacon.. and now they can actually be apart of the magic as it happens... Wow, how times have changed!" - Oteil

Check out www. Moogis. com

* Get all 15 Beacon Run concert shows.. LIVE and On-Demand!

* FULL ACCESS now to dozens of other archived video.. and audio concerts through 9/30/09.

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Info on Moogis:

Five years ago Butch Trucks, a founding member and drummer of the Allman Brothers Band, had a vision of how the Internet could bring the live concert experience into people's homes around the world, expanding the audience of a live concert to many thousands of music-loving fans. But this would be more than just another streaming video service that didn't care about the content itself – it would be an extended community that felt that same magical bond that comes over a crowd during that roar of approval after a soaring solo.

Butch's vision was right on – but the technology at the time was limited, and it has taken enormous patience and persistence to get to the point where the experience could match the dream – and so, Moogis was born. Moogis offers its subscribers streaming video access to entire live concerts, both in real time and on-demand from its archives. Moogis.com is the gathering place for our subscribers, a social website where you can create your own profile, join discussion groups, hang out with like-minded folks and share the communal experience that music inspires. We don't have a drum circle yet, but who knows...

All this is coming together in time for the Allman Brothers Band’s historic 40th anniversary run at the Beacon Theatre in New York City . The Beacon has always sold out and drawn fans from near and far – this year, you can be part of the biggest Beacon audience ever – and experience what we know will be a truly epic musical event. Join us – subscribe, and with Moogis, you’ll always have the best seat in the house! 

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Making Peace With Oteil

Oteil Burbridge

By Bryan Beller | August 2007

My recent move to Nashville from L.A. has had some unexpected benefits, like being closer to the Birmingham, Alabama, home of legendary bassist Oteil Burbridge. Oteil and his band the Peacemakers were recently on a short regional jaunt that took them to Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where I witnessed them tear the stage in half for an Earth Day concert at Middle Tennessee State University. The show was free, the sound was spectacular, and the audience vibe was great. New York, L.A., and San Francisco, eat your heart out.

Regular Bass Player readers might be familiar with Oteil's signature blend of southern grease and masterful jazz bebop, and his supernatural ability to sing along with bass solos most could only dream of simply playing. I've been listening to him for over ten years, and it was still mind-blowing to see it up close and personal.

Oteil plays three roles in his band. The first is traditional: the groove-holding bassist. The second is as a featured soloist. The third? He's the lead vocalist! That's a new development (the Peacemakers' former singer left the band last year), but a logical one considering Oteil's vocal prowess.

How does he do it all? The answer may surprise you. "Though I do handle all the vocal duties now, when we play live I usually have my keyboardist Matt Slocum handle the bass lines on the more difficult stuff," Oteil explains. "It's just too much to think about. Plus, I don't want to dumb-down my bass lines just because I have to sing."

As we take a look at a typical Peacemaker bass line, with its tight and tricky syncopations, you can understand Oteil's decision. In Ex. 1, the groove from "Thank You" [The Family Secret, Memphis International], the blues-scale notes are just the beginning of how Oteil makes it happen. Feel is everything on this one. Make sure your right hand is back near the bridge pickup for the right tone on those staccato notes, which should be placed ever-so-slightly behind the beat (with the four consecutive 16th-notes in bar 2 even more laid-back). When employed correctly, even the notes on the B string should bark with enough clarity and color to sit with some breathing room inside a 16th-note.

Ex. 2, an excerpt from the Oteil's solo on "Get Ready," from The Family Secret, is a great showcase of Oteil's intense scatting/soloing technique. Over an F13 to Eb6 chord progression, he starts high with a flurry of chromatically offset positional "boxes" (see the tab) before landing briefly in the F tonality (G–F–D–C–F of bar 2, beat three). Then he plunges down a long, dense, Eb altered line that could be interpreted many different ways (what's up with that B natural in bar 3, beat three, I wondered?), and ties it up with some nifty whole-tone stuff (bars 4 and 5). Finally, he works his way to the 9 (A) of the G13 chord that ends the example. Sing that? It's hard enough thinking it, let alone playing it. So what was he thinking?

"I'm using tritone subs and playing those changes 'inside'. For instance, where there is an F13, I'll keep the chord the same on top and change the bass note to the tri-tone B; then you have a B79 chord. Then you simply use the appropriate scale for that chord." Ah, suddenly that B on the descending run makes a little more sense, and the Db–Eb–F–G–A whole tones in bars 4 and 5 sound good and nasty with a B floating ominously underneath.

That still doesn't explain how Oteil could sing along with such a thing. Would it surprise you that it involves practice? "You do two hundred gigs a year and you get lots of practice! Start playing and singing melodies to songs that you already know. Make it easy at first, and then progress to the more complex stuff."

The "more complex stuff" comes from Oteil's love for "what is essentially jazz harmony over R&B grooves," citing Stevie Wonder and Earth, Wind & Fire as compositional influences. Oteil's advice for players who want to understand where he came from and employ it in their own playing is simple: check everybody out, not just bassists. "Let everything else besides bass influence your playing. Drummer Elvin Jones is as much an influence on me as Bootsy or Jaco. Now I listen to Howlin' Wolf, Ralph Stanley, Reverend James Cleveland, Freddie King, Charlie Christian, Django Reinhardt, and George Jones, as much as the jazz, latin, classical, or funk music I grew up listening to."

Considering how much he's bringing to the table, hopefully he'll understand our focus on just him for a while.