Five Classic James Brown Bass Grooves

 Groove 1 - Sex Machine

This first groove is from the classic ‘Get Up I Feel Like Being A Sex Machine’ released in 1970.

Like most of the James Brown bass lines, the groove never stays the same!

What I recommend doing with these types of bass lines is come up with a standard groove and then vary it yourself, using some of the variations from the original bass lines. Don’t try to learn the exact bass line as you’ll be there forever. This way you can really make the bass line yours while keeping the original idea going.

This is a tricky groove to play and you can leave out the high octave in Bar 2 if that throws you off for the rest of the bar.

Play the last bar of the bridge as the Intro.

 Groove 3 - Talkin’ Loud And Saying Nothin’

The third James Brown groove is from ‘Talkin’ Loud And Saying Nothin’ released in 1972 and again features Bootsy Collins.

It is basically a 2-bar pattern but with slight changes to the end of each second bar.

Try to play the 16th notes at the end of Bars 2 and 4 straight, not swung.

The bridge is actually pretty hard to play. Experiment with different finger combinations in your plucking hand until you find something that works for you.

Groove 4 - Bodyheat

The fourth groove is from ‘Bodyheat’ which was released in 1976.

It has a different bass player, Charles Sherrel on the original track. He played on quite a few of James Brown’s famous hits of the late 1960’s and also played with artists such as Aretha Franklin, AL Green and Maceo Parker.

This groove is very syncopated, meaning that lots of the notes are off the main beats. This can make it tricky to place the notes in the exact place, so focus on the rhythm. Maybe tap out the rhythm first before attempting to play the riff.

There is a short link to the bridge which uses notes from the Eb minor Blues scale.

Groove 5 - Get Up Offa That Thing

The fifth and last James Brown groove in this lesson is from ‘Get Up Offa That Thing’ released in 1976.

The bass player on the original track is prolific session bassist, Will Lee. This surprised me when I was researching this song as I wasn’t aware that he played with James Brown. 

It is a really nice funky groove, and again the riff changes slightly each time round.

The tuning of the original track is between F# and G so I’ve written it in G but you might need to detune very slightly if you want to play with the original track.