Hear Me Lord

 "Hear Me Lord"
(George Harrison)
From the George Harrison album All Things Must Pass

George Harrison kicked off his post-Beatles solo career with a bang, releasing the epic and exquisite All Things Must Pass. Being allotted only two songs per Beatles album, Harrison had built up an extensive backlog of songs from 1968-1970. Thus, when it came time to begin recording in May 1970, he had enough songs for a double album. By the time of its release in October, All Things Must Pass had swelled to a triple album, the third disc being comprised mostly of in-studio jams.

Harrison assembled an impressive cast of musicians to help him record, including Ringo Starr, Billy Preston, Klaus Voormann, the Apple band Badfinger, Dave Mason, Gary Wright, Peter Frampton, Bobby Keys, Jim Price, Alan White, and, famously, the band that would become Derek and the Dominos: Eric Clapton, Carl Radle, Bobby Whitlock, and Jim Gordon. Carl Radle plays on 11 of the album’s 23 songs. The others feature Klaus Voormann on bass.

Radle’s bass line on “Hear Me Lord” is a little uncharacteristic of his playing, in that he has a basic skeleton of a line that he continuously embellishes. It would be much more typical of his style to play the same pattern over and over with little to no embellishment.

Some of the variations of his bass line for this song are a little tricky rhythmically, and may take some time to work out if reading notation isn’t your strong suit. One thing that will help is to learn the 4-measure pattern below. This is the basic groove he’s playing for most of the song (everything but the chorus, which is only heard twice)—if you think of everything else as just an embellishment of this line, it will be much easier to work out.

The pattern above will also serve as a good starting point for your own improvisations. Try playing it and adding in your own Radle-esque embellishments. Keep these things in mind when you’re improvising:

1. Radle rarely varied the first measure of the pattern too much, likely to avoid interfering with the vocal melody. 
2. On the E chord (second measure of the pattern), Radle sticks to notes within the E pentatonic scale (E-F#-G#-B-C#). His most frequent embellishments on this chord involve repeated E’s on beat 1 (see m. 42) and a G# on the 4th sixteenth note of beat 3 (see m. 18). He does not alter beat 4 of this chord until very late in the song, as it is fading out.
3. In the 3rd measure of the pattern, the C#7 chord, Radle always keeps the walk-down intact (C#-B-A-G#), but often embellishes it with upper neighbor tones (see m. 75). 
4. The 4th measure of the pattern is subject to the most variation. Harrison’s vocal phrase has already ended, as has the backing vocal response, “hear me lord,” so Radle does not need to worry about stepping on anything. He can just play some kind of fill to set up a repeat of this 4-measure pattern (or the chorus).

Feelin' Alright

Feelin' Alright
(Dave Mason)
From the Joe Cocker album Mad Dogs and Englishmen

This song, written by Dave Mason and originally released on Traffic’s eponymous 1968 album, is constructed of only two chords repeated over and over. The melody and lyrics change as it moves between the verse and chorus, but the chord progression remains constant. On the rendition of the song on Mad Dogs and Englishmen, Radle plays a fairly consistent groove throughout.

The above bass line serves as a sort of starting point from which to improvise. Most often, Radle’s embellishments are rhythmic variations of this line. He does not vary the line to the point of distraction, but as the song itself is extremely repetitive, Radle’s improvisations keep the groove lively and fresh.

A full transcription is below. Because it is easy to get lost, I have included approximate timings for each section that correspond with the recording.