The Funk Legend Who Revolutionized Bass Guitar By Accident

Few bassists personify the rumble and power of their instrument quite like Larry Graham. His single greatest contribution to music history — a pivot point in the long history of funk — may be in the unique way he played his instrument. So differently, in fact, that it helped shift the sound of soul and funk around his two hands. And while the technique was known to him under one name, music fans (and a few comedians) call it slapping the bass.

As a founding member of Sly and the Family Stone, Graham helped change the face of funk music forever, before blending funk, soul, and pop together even further, first in Graham Central Station and then as a solo artist. Rolling Stone named him one of the greatest bassists ever, and his influences can be traced from friends and followers like Prince to his nephew Aubrey, better known as the hit-making rapper Drake.

Larry Graham's approach to slap bass wasn't exactly new. Upright bassists, like Elvis Presley sideman Bill Black, had been doing it for years, and George and Ira Gershwin even wrote a song called "Slap That Bass." But Graham was an electric bassist, and his technique was revolutionary on that instrument. He used the joint of his thumb to strike his strings and used his other fingers to "pop" them against his fretboard.

Graham's logic behind the style, which he called "thumpin' and pluckin'," was rather striking (no pun intended). "I wasn't interested in learning the so-called correct way of playing, because I wasn't planning to be a bass player," Graham told Bass Player. "I came up with my own style out of the necessity of not having a drummer. I was basically trying to play drums on the bass."

Under Graham, one of the greatest self-taught bassists of all time, the slap bass technique hit its stride on the Sly and the Family Stone smash "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)," a funk hit that changed the face of pop music. Released at the end of 1969, it topped the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks in the winter of 1970.

Before long, Larry Graham's slap bass technique was a key component of funk rhythm. Many other bassists followed his example, from Bootsy Collins and Marcus Miller to Louis "Thunder Thumbs" Johnson, who played on Michael Jackson's "Off the Wall." Slap bass soon became a technique embraced by rock artists, from Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Les Claypool of Primus.

But slap bass had its share of challenges, too, and some critics and audiences came to associate the sound with high comedy. Part of that can be attributed to the theme to the hit show "Seinfeld," which consisted of slap bass samples played by composer Jonathan Wolff on a keyboard. And who could forget Paul Rudd, playing a Rush fan in the hit 2009 comedy "I Love You, Man," riffing on air bass in an assortment of accents?

Such jokes can be distractions, but there's no getting over the fact that Graham's groundbreaking approach to the bottom end helped sculpt music history in his image. And for that, he gets a thumbs-up from us — right on the joint, of course.