Bass Player: Neil Murray

This transcription came as a request from the hallowed forums of Basschat.co.uk. Bilbo has a background in heavy metal, having played with NWOBHM band ‘No Quarter’ whilst in his teens and he has enjoyed Neil Murray’s work with Whitesnake, Gary Moore and a few other rockers as well as his Jazz Rock outings with Colosseum II and National Health (Murray also stood in for Jeff Berlin with Bruford a few times – now THAT is a tough act to follow). For some reason, people were struggling to get a handle on what Murray was doing on this tune and there are a couple of fills that are a little tougher than your usual Rock ‘n’ Roll fare. Bilbo was provided with an ‘isolated bass’ version of the tune after his was three quarters of the way through the transcription and, on listening to the exposed bass parts, realised that the bits he was struggling to hear were actually ‘clinkers’, minor errors that don’t cause the momentum of the part to collapse and are left in simply becasue the overall feel of the performance is worth the conmpromise. Anyone with any experience of listening to music as closely as musicians do will know that there are many examples of imperfect performances making the final cut: Jimmy Page even has one in the guitar solo to ‘Stairway To Heaven’.

A side note: slowing down the tune by 75% to confirm a detail reveals how phenomenally accurate David Coverdale’s vocals were.