Harvey Brooks Archives

With the holidays right around the corner, it’s nice to have a few ideas to give your loved ones for gifts for their favorite bassist. That’s why we’ve compiled a handful of our favorite bass-centric books that were released this year.

Last year, we shared a Stories Behind the Songs interview with Harvey Brooks, whose bass lines laid the foundation on albums that changed the face of popular music. Now, fans can get even deeper into his life with his new memoir, “View From The Bottom.”

The ’60s and ’70s were full of pivotal moments in music with albums that helped spawn new genres and reflect the quickly changing culture. Harvey Brooks played on many of them. Here are 11 of his favorite tracks, in his own words.

Music from a couple of storied and previously unheard recording sessions, which signaled a legendary melding of jazz and rock, is finally seeing the light of day. Those sessions were produced by jazz legend Miles Davis and Teo Macero on May 14 and May 20, 1969, and featured Davis’ then-wife, Betty (the pair split by the early 1970s) on vocals,...

I love discovering older bands that I missed, and The Electric Flag is definitely one of them. The short-lived band fused blues, rock, and soul for an upbeat sound. Electric Flag was anchored by bass great Harvey Brooks, who also worked with Bob Dylan, The Doors, and Miles Davis. His active bass line drives the energy alongside a young Buddy...

Forty years after it’s original release, Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew has been re-mastered and re-released in a 3-disc set, with the original album and six bonus tracks over 2 CD’s as well as a DVD of the previously unreleased Copenhagen concert from November 4, 1969. The psychedelic, electrified album was Davis’ first to go gold and is held together by...

In a recent interview with Ynetnews, bassist Harvey Brooks tells pieces of his life story, which for the past four decades includes playing beside Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Miles Davis, Mama Cass and B.B. King, to name a few. In the interview Brooks recalls playing with some of the greats (an excerpt): “Jim Morrison, like Jimi,...