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Musician SEPTEMBER 1982 - by Chris Doering

BUSTA JONES'S FUNK-PUNK

The Bass Behind The New Wave

Busta Jones has played his bass just about everywhere in this world that people listen to American music, and his music ranges from blues to disco, from hard rock to the avant-garde of funk. Yet he's never lost touch with his Memphis roots (he grew up with members of The Bar-Kays) or forgotten the lessons he learned from his first big-time boss, blues guitarist Albert King. "Albert taught me to be very definite in everything I play," he says. "He was very insistent on a strong bottom."

They had a word for the kind of bass Busta learned to play while working for Albert King. They called it "fatback," and although the name suggests the taste of fried pigmeat, it was coined because masters of the style like Donald "Duck" Dunn and Al Jackson played a little in back of the beat, and they made the music sound fat. Paradoxically, the behind-the-beat fatback groove gave the music more drive and momentum.

So it's no wonder that musicians as diverse as Brian Eno ( who hired Busta for Here Come The Warm Jets and My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts) and Euro-disco producer Gino Soccio have heard something they liked in Busta's playing. He's also worked with guitarist Chris Spedding on and off for nearly ten years, recently toured with Gang Of Four, and was a pivotal member of the expanded funked-up Talking Heads, both on the world tour documented on the second half of The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads and on various Head solo projects. For that tour the Heads hired Busta's whole band after seeing them at the Ritz in New York. "Tina and I both played bass on Crosseyed And Painless, The Great Curve and Take Me To The River," he recalls. "She pretty much played the upper octave of the bass, and I played the bottom. I had never done that before, but it was nice, it gave the music a really big sound."

Bush Of Ghosts and the Heads album that grew out of it, Remain In Light, were groundbreaking albums that opened up the territory on which funk and punk now mingle. But as Busta describes them, the sessions were very casual. "We worked on what Brian calls 'exercises,' just different rhythmic things, some straight funk things and some more contrapuntal things where I'd play something and the guitar would do something and then a drum beat, instead of everybody phrasing together. I had been working with Tina, sort of giving her bass lessons. And when you teach someone, you're showing them licks and just a general approach to the instrument, so I guess that had something to do with why they called me for the sessions."

To get a better idea of Busta's approach to the bass and what it has meant to new wave music, compare The Regiment from Bush Of Ghosts to, say, Don't You Want Me by the Human League. The musical notation for both bass lines is almost the same, but the feel is completely different, and not just because the League played their bass line on a keyboard or put in the down-beats that Busta leaves out. We're talking microsecond differences in timing here, but they're differences anyone can hear and feel, and they make the difference between a record you can dance to if you want to (League) and one that makes you want to dance (Ghosts).

Part of Busta's sound in the studio is his Fender Precision, customized with DiMarzio P- and J-Bass pickups and a Badass bridge, and the LaBella flatwound strings he uses for recording. He records the bass direct, and his only adjustment is to " go around the instrument, find all the little rattles, and tape them." Flatwound strings have been out of fashion since Larry Graham and Stanley Clarke made the slap-and-pop bass style famous, but Busta's playing is convincing evidence that "that round bass tone works really well in funk and dance-oriented music."

Live is a different story, though, and on The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads you can hear the sound of Busta's Precision with roundwound strings, and the Ampeg SVT he prefers for stage work. On rock gigs he switches to a wooden Dan Armstrong bass to get even more bite.

Although he's best known as a bassist, Busta has always been involved in writing and production, and his credits in these areas (including two solo albums, collaborations with Jerry Harrison and Chris Spedding, and a Nona Hendryx single) are about to expand with his work on The Ramones' next album. "I really began producing in Montreal with Gino Soccio, although I never got credit for the work I did on those records," he says. "Just from being in the studio so much, I know how the equipment works and how to get different sounds."With the Ramones, " most of the work was done in preproduction rehearsal, so when we went into the studio, they were on. We didn't need to do a lot of takes. See, The Ramones are a band, not just a bunch of session musicians, so what I try to do is get the essence of the band on tape.

"They were really happy that I didn't change them, or try to get them to play anything that they're not. I just showed them how to play what they're playing and make it come off the way they really wanted it. Like when Johnny's playing with his guitar around his knees, he's really trying to get you to see the point, what he's feeling. And the only way he feels that he can make you listen is to play ninety miles an hour. But I showed him he doesn't have to do it like that.

"I thought that Phil Spector (on The Ramones End Of The Century LP) was trying to make the sound big and huge by doubling the guitar five or six times and things like that. But what about the playing and the delivery of the parts? The Ramones are known for playing everything really fast, they always race, race, race. So I got them to pull back a little bit, just plant it and sock it a little more, so it's big and fat. Just concentrate on the seed. That's one thing the Heads learned from me, David and I have talked about it quite a bit, because he knows that I have that sense of the essence of it first, the heart of it. Then you can build outward from that."

Busta's next project will be a heavy rock trio with two friends from his Montreal days. It's a dream he's had since he opened concerts for the rock stars of the '70s while playing with Albert King. "I've always wanted to crossover, not the way Prince or Rick James are doing it, because I'm not that slick, but as a real rock 'n' roller, with all the rough edges and everything. It's hard for a black rock act to get a deal, because if you're black you're supposed to just do dance music. But I grew up listening to the same records as everyone else, not just Motown and Stax, but Cream and Hendrix and the British rock bands. I've written a lot of rock songs over the years, and I really feel that it's time for me to get out and do all these things that I've never had a chance to do before."