Lemme just tell you a little about myself. I started playing bass in 1974 when I got a bass for Christmas. I was singing in the choir at Rev. James Cleveland's church, and he used to let me sit on the side and try to figure out the songs. I realized early on that God had given me the gift to play bass. I'm am totally self taught, so I probably did alot of things that were not by the book! I came up in a time when most churches did'nt even see a need for bass because the organists would play bass on the pedals, (Many still do!). A lot of people ask me about scales and theory, but to tell you the truth, I don't know the technical terms for 99% of the stuff I do. Understand, when I was coming up, the only other bass player that I knew about was Joel Smith (My favourite player). There were no standards for playing in church, so basically I set my own standard, which after a while began to get the attention of a lot of artists. At one point, I was playing with James Cleveland, The Winans, Andrae Crouch, The Hawkins Family, and the Jazz Crusaders at the same time. The luxury that up and coming players today have, is having all these great players to listen to, Like Terrance Palmer, Maurice, Joel, Reggie Young etc. One thing that I can say is that I NEVER wanted to sound like anyone else, that does'nt mean that I don't listen to anyone else, I love all the guys that I mentioned before and a few others like Marcus, Victor, and Robert Wilson of The Gap Band, check him out! To the question of getting around my fretboard, I used to learn a song, then play it in every key and in every position on my bass. For instance, if it's in E, then find every E on the neck, and play the song. To the question of the Bass Off, I'm not exactly sure how that works, so I'm gonna leave that alone, but if you let me know of some things that you'd like to hear examples of, I'll post them. Peace.......
