Donald 'Duck' Dunn passed away yesterday (May 13th) in his sleep after finishing a double show in Tokyo. Duck was one of the most influential soul and R&B bass players in the history of pop music. He played on an enormous range of Stax records releases throughout the sixties and seventies including Albert King's 'Born Under a Bad Sign,' Otis Redding's 'Respect,' and most famously as part of the organ fried Booker T. & the M.G.'s. While he joined the M.G.'s after the release of their well known song 'Green Onions,' he helped define the bumping and shaking instrumental grooves the band would go on to explore, creating rhythms still built upon and sampled to this day.
Duck, nicknamed after Donald Duck by his father when he was a kid, was a largely self taught bass player. Rather than take lessons or learn specific lines to practice he would play along with records and fill in what he felt was the missing sound in the rhythm. As a result his playing is a relatively unique mixture of fluid lines, hard jazz and grooving funk that fills in the melody of a song as much as it provides a rhythm. It never draws too much attention to itself, but creates a fuller and richer sound for the song over all- the mark of a truly great bass line and player.
We've pulled out a triple bill song selection to celebrate Duck and his contribution to pop music.
The first is the title track from Melting Pot, Booker T. and the M.G.'s 1970 instrumental R&B opus.
Next the final track of McLemore Avenue, the four part instrumental reworking of The Beatles Abbey Road. The track comprises of a medley of Sun King, Mean Mr. Mustard, Polythene Pam, She Came in Through the Bathroom Window and I Want You (She's So Heavy).
And finally from the soundtrack to Michel Gondry's 2008 film Be Kind Rewind, a rendition of standard I Ain't Got Nobody which reunited him with M.G. members Booker T. Jones, Steve Cropper and Al Jackson Jr.
