Bruno Tauzin: 30 Best Motown Bass Riffs

Without a doubt, Motown’s prolific output yielded some of the best in-the-pocket bass lines in history. Songs from the label often had deceptively complex grooves, often provided by the late great James Jamerson.

Bruno Tauzin decided to string together 30 of his favorite Motown bass riffs into one awesome clip as part of his new “Best Bass Riffs” series. “I played [them] on my Precision 63 American Vintage with Labella flatwounds,” he shares.

Which line is your favorite?

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Leave a Reply to mrbluebass Cancel reply

  1. I Think the vid should have been longer and the line played for 8 – 16 bars into the tunes

  2. Jamerson did not play on I Want You Back. That was played by Wilton Felder.

  3. And Bob Babbitt played on Inner City Blues.

  4. Mick

    Stevie’s grooves are the best!

  5. All of them, without any doubts !

  6. …won’t vote, but will say that this guy has the sound properly nailed – there are so many badly played / poorly recorded vids out there, and it’s a joy to hear things done right. Only thing I’d say is that for most part, each little snapshot caught the essence of the bass line, but it would have been good to get a little deeper into some of them. Good job.

  7. Bernadette and What’s Going On.

  8. Stephan

    Very nice collection, just forgot the bassline of “I Wish” by S. Wonder!!

  9. PhiDeck

    Nicely done.
    Identifying the original bassists in the footnotes would be a nice touch, particularly for newbies.

  10. Wished I could find the sheet music for these riffs. Love them!