We know the names of the bass legends, those who stood in front and wowed audiences from the start: Jaco Pastorius, the self-proclaimed “Greatest Bass Player in the World” (and he backed it up); Charles Mingus; Stanley Clarke; Victor Wooten; Geddy Lee; Marcus Miller; Norwood Fisher; Les Claypool; Jack Bruce; John Entwhistle; Bootsy Collins. We know the superstars whose voices overshadowed their surprisingly good bass chops, like Paul McCartney, and my original inspiration, Sting. Thanks to the work of Allan Slutsky, previously unknown giants have gained increasing notoriety, at least among bass players: obviously James Jamerson (the ORIGINAL Greatest Bass Player in the World), but from their we paid more attention to guys like Duck Dunn, Chuck Rainey, Nathan East, Bob Babbitt, and Lee Sklar, who may be the most prolific bass player in history.
(I keep thinking of more names to add. The truth is, there are so many great bass players, and if you’re not specifically mentioned, I do apologize. Like Ron Carter, I did not mean to forget you. Or Mark Sandman. Or Chris Wood. Or Bernie Edwards. Moving on.)
For the number of many wonderful bass players whose names we’re at least familiar with, even counting Sklar among their numbers, there are countless recordings with bass players who toil in relative obscurity. Most are adequate, though many are less than; some are downright terrible (I’ll give Sid Vicious a pass for making up for his inadequacies with monster persona). And some shine out, even if the spotlight never shines on them.
Holidays. They’re all about the traditions; to this day, I look forward to my chocolate bunny from my mom. I remember getting up on Easter morning, and spying around the house as I made my way to the living room, looking for any edge over my brother in the Easter egg hunt. That egg hunt was second only to Christmas morning for excitement; and while I was usually up around 6:00 a.m. on Saturdays to watch “Rocky & Bullwinkle” and “Smurfs,” on those two mornings I think my parents were almost as excited as my brother and I to be out of bed. “Meaning” was gained as I grew older, and egg hunts were replaced by sunrise church services, and new clothes that couldn’t get dirty under any circumstance. But as a teenager, understanding, comprehension and meaning were not things usually found at 6:00 a.m. on a Sunday – by that time, I learned that Sunday morning fell after Saturday night.
As I grew older, we lost another tradition that I didn’t even know how much I missed. I do not come from a musical family, but when I was little – like, single digits young – my dad would play “Jesus Christ Superstar” on our turntable. When I reached those angsty teen years, as I rejected most of what I believed my parents believed in, “Superstar” was lumped in with John Denver and Stevie Nicks and Helen Reddy for sappy, crappy music my parents liked. “Rocky Mountain High”? I’d rather be getting high, listen to Bob Marley “Jammin’” about resistance to oppression in “Redemption Song,” imagining myself a “Buffalo Soldier” without having any clue what the term meant. To this day, I believe Pearl Jam’s Ten and Nirvana’s Nevermind are the seminal albums of their time, because I heard in those albums what I felt in my head daily. I connected to 2Pac, not because I shared his direct experience, but because in Me Against the World I knew I shared the experience of being alone, but unbowed against the struggle.
At some point, you stop growing older, and decide it might be time to grow up. I probably had friends who did that faster than I did, but I didn’t have anything like a kid forcing me to grow up fast, it just seemed like the thing to do. The consistent role models I had were my parents, though even then (or now) I wouldn’t tell them that. I went to law school, because it seemed a good route to a good job, I stopped riding my bike and started driving a sensible car. I even started appreciating John Denver, and beat my parents to a Stevie Nicks box set at a yard sale. (I still have no Helen Reddy, other than “I Am Woman” on a ‘70s compilation somewhere.)
Then, while browsing stacks at a used book store one afternoon, I found the original recording of Jesus Christ Superstar.
Even growing up, I knew that Superstar defied the conventions of the growing “Christian rock” genre, and other than “The Last Supper,” didn’t even fit in the contemporary service I enjoyed most growing up. (The contemporary service really wasn’t, even then – with its soft acoustic strummings, it was probably a relic from 15-20 years earlier. It was only in comparison with most other church music that it felt at all “contemporary.”)
The first few times I listened to Superstar after getting the album, it was in pure nostalgia. It was only after this that I started to listen to it. Jesus Christ Superstar is a straight up rock-funk opera. The subject matter is religious; the music is top notch. Even more, the bass playing could be a clinic.
The “Overture” gives an overview of the musical themes to follow, but little clue as to the bass brilliance to follow. Likewise, the opening song, “Heaven On Their Minds” starts with an intense, sharp guitar riff that builds intensity (and builds in intensity), joined by Murray Head’s vocal and drums, joined by a second screaming guitar and horns as the first verse builds to crescendo as Judas strives for Jesus’s attention (in soliloquy, of course). The second verse, however, drops the intensity as the lyric moves toward reasoning with the absent Jesus – and what instrument better represents the best of man’s reason than the electric bass? Spenner bounces, Spenner is busy, Spenner complements without ever challenging the vocals.
The bass never slows down, despite taking until midway through the second song to establish itself – if you care enough about bass to visit a blog like this, you probably already suspect that bass is the foundation of music (and, perhaps, of the whole Universe). Spenner’s bass is the foundation of the music in Jesus Christ Superstar. He bubbles through “What’s the Buzz?”, and gently pushes Yvonne Elliman through “Everything’s Alright” (and underscores the “Everything’s Alright” theme below an argument between Judas and Jesus, musically underscoring the tension that everything is not, in fact, alright). The music changes wildly, sometimes from song to song, but Spenner never lets up, never lets down. Whether a quicker paced song, like “Simon Zealotes,” or the slower “The Last Supper” (a favorite when I was little, because the apostles’ chorus, “Always hoped that I’d be an apostle, knew that I could make it if I tried,” amused me, and because the music for that chorus was closest to the contemporary services at my church), or even the ragtime styling of “King Herod’s Song,” Spenner is note perfect throughout.
The only place he seems to disappear, unfortunately, is the album’s secondary hit, “I Don’t Know How to Love Him.” Elliman’s primary accompaniment in the song is an acoustic guitar, and the bass plays a more traditional role of establishing the root – and staying out of the way. (Coincidentally, the song was an even bigger hit by Helen Reddy – that one artist my parents liked that I could never accept.)
While I would love to attribute the bass brilliance to divine sources, I think the nature of the work ultimately allowed Spenner to shine. In most rock/pop groups (especially at that time), the primary “voices” go to the singer and the guitarist. In the rock opera, however, the voices are primarily, well, voices. Most of the vocalists are tenors or higher, making the bass a more appropriate complement to the singers than a guitar; as a result, in most of the songs the bass establishes itself as the primary melodic instrument, in addition to anchoring the rhythm. Of course, this takes nothing away from Spenner as a bassist – plenty of musicians find themselves in ideal situations only to deliver flat performances. You need go no further than the film soundtrack version of Jesus Christ Superstar to witness a far inferior rendition of the same work.
For a story about the Passion of Christ, the only character in Jesus Christ Superstar to come back from the dead is Judas Iscariot, at the opera’s climax, “Superstar.” After a magnificent brass fanfare to open the song, Spenner takes over with a funk groove that holds its own against anything performed by any of those front-line bass players I listed earlier. He dances around Murray Head’s vocal, and lifts up the chorus of angels. Even as the entire heavenly rock orchestra brings the song to its crescendo, Spenner is weaving through the music at a frenetic pace.
After “Superstar,” Jesus Christ Superstar ends with two more atmospheric pieces: “The Crucifixion” features a spattering of spoken phrases by Ian Gillan, some avant-garde piano and well-used effects to create a feeling of unease; “John Nineteen: Forty-One” ends the opera with a traditional symphonic postlude. Neither piece makes use of a bass.
After “Superstar,” Alan Spenner continued to work regularly; while his name is not well known, the artists he worked with certainly are. Even before Jesus Christ Superstar, Spenner was a regular member of Joe Cocker’s band, even appearing at Woodstock, and had recorded with Leon Russell. He would go on to work with Roxy Music and Bryan Ferry; Peter Frampton; Mick Taylor (post-Stones); Donovan; Steve Winwood; and Ted Nugent, among others. Unfortunately, Alan Spenner died of a heart attack in 1991 at age 43, undoubtedly with a lot of music left in him, and before we started giving sidemen and session musicians the acclaim they’ve always deserved.
So do yourself a favor this Easter and borrow my family’s tradition, and take a serious listen to Jesus Christ Superstar. It’s full of revelations and Easter eggs, and it’s just as flavorful (and healthier for you) as a chocolate bunny.
The Book of Five Strings 