Cover Tune Archives - Page 19

Here’s something you wouldn’t expect: a cover of Living Colour’s “Cult of Personality” on bass, drums and 7-string electric violin. The entire arrangement was put together by bassist Brad Russell, who absolutely tears the song up with a gnarly distortion and blazing licks. He then trades solos with violinist Earl Maneein while Jason Furman holds the beat on drums.

“Blackbird” is a song many bassists cover, but Petros Klampanis takes it in his own direction in this video with vocalist Sofia Ribeiro and percussionist Marcelo Woloski. Starting with an intimate bass/voice duet, the song soon kicks into a beautiful groove with Ribeiro’s voice soaring over top. The song is also available on the bassist’s album Contextual.

Miki Santamaria never ceases to amaze us, and it would seem he raises the bar with each new video. Here he is performing his solo bass arrangement of Stevie Wonder’s “Overjoyed”, a song he calls one of his favorites. The bass is a Yamaha BB2024X, and he’s using reverb from Garage Band. Amazing.

Adam Neely and Justina Soto make a great duo. Here’s their latest, a bass and voice take on Cole Porter’s “So in Love.” Neely and Soto shot the video as part of their aptly named Rooftop Sessions series.

When Adam Stevens first heard the tune “Rude” by Reggae/pop group MAGIC!, he said he couldn’t get the song out of his head. A week later, he recorded this all bass cover of the tune. And that makes it just a little sweeter, to us at least.

It’s always great to discover cool bass lines that you wouldn’t normally hear. I don’t listen to much pop, but Manuel Jiménez Gastélum sent in this cover of Chris Brown’s “Fine China,” and I dig it. The song has a funky distorted bass line that he absolutely nails and his tone is killer.

I love Opeth, so when our friend Yuval Raz sent in this video of his bass cover of “To Bid You Farewell,” I knew it was going to be good. Raz covers the whole tune, which appeared on 1996’s Morningrise, including the bass line, melody, and harmony. Overall, the version has four channels of bass recorded on the bassist’s Ken...

It has been quite a while since we’ve featured a video by Blake Branch. This one is actually over three years old, but is well worth sharing. Blake transcribed the complete bass line on Stevie Wonder’s “For Once in My Life,” which of course was masterfully played by James Jamerson. Almost as impressive is the tone Blake gets from his...

Hüseyin Karaca shared this video with us with a simple note: “Thank you Jaco Pastorius.” Written by Bach and reimagined for solo bass by Jaco on his Word of Mouth album, Hüseyin has remade “Chromatic Fantasy” into a Latin style piece featuring bass and percussion, along with percussionist Mehmet Arslan.

I randomly stumbled upon the work of Matt Gruebner – aka Maxgroover – over the weekend. His solo bass performance of The Beatles’ “Hey Jude” really knocked me out. Matt is performing this on a Nash Jazz bass.

Our Twitter friend Valeria Lecko sent this video to us, and it looks like Jim Bennett is inspiring bassists out there with his all-bass Daft Punk covers. This is Nico Aranda showing off some excellent technique – and some cool videography – in his performance of “Get Lucky”.

Bassist Bryan Ladd sent us this terrific video, which offers up a nice arrangement of the Jaco Pastorius tune, “Havona”. Bryan is joined by Justin Stanton on the Fender Rhodes and Jason Patterson on drums. And these guys are tight! Bryan takes an incredible solo too. I’ve watched this several times already. I bet you will too.