Duck

Bass players rarely get the credit they deserve, unless they're frontmen like Sting or Paul McCartney, and even then it's rare their actual musical part is applauded. No, in the main, it's only their fellow bassists that take note of a fine piece of work and understand what they bring to the song.

As one of those sad, lonely doe-eyed drifters that often hang about with musicians, I was therefore saddened to hear of the death of one of our legends. Donald "Duck" Dunn passed away in Tokyo yesterday shortly after playing a gig alongside his musical partner of many decades, Steve Cropper.

Together, with Booker T. Jones and Al Jackson Jnr, they made up Booker T and the MGs, he played on songs anyone with a vague awareness will have heard. Sam & Dave, Otis Redding and Eddie Floyd all benefited from his rocksteady playing, as did John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd when they asked him (and Cropper) to join their Blues Brothers Band. Duck starred in the subsequent film, puffing away on his pipe while bashing through Everybody Needs Somebody To Love.

When I was learning to play as a 16/17 year old, he was one of those players whose work I aspired to be like - not a guy you instantly notice but when you listen carefully, he's there holding down the groove and making the song as good as it can be. Coming from Memphis, he was exposed to and became proficient in many styles - he, along with Jones and Cropper (Jackson was murdered in the mid 70s), worked with Neil Young as well as the usual soul suspects. And all that is before you get into the large number of frankly superb Booker T and the MGs songs - cricket fans will have heard him on Soul Limbo, for many years the theme music for BBCs coverage.

Thanks for the tunes, Duck.

Top bass playing, top pipe smoking