ABSTRACT
This chapter will examine bass lines of the music in the Rolling Stones’ Beggars’ Banquet album. Bass lines in the album are not only provided by the band’s original bassist Bill Wyman, but also by the band’s guitarist Keith Richards for some tracks. Both incorporated guitarist’s perspectives into their bass playing, since Wyman also used to be a guitarist before joining the band. They included prominent bass solos in some songs, just like guitarists. They also created rhythmically complex bass riffs, moving independently of guitar chords. Further, they elaborated on lead-in fills on bass, contributing to some of the best moments on the album. These were ‘new’ and ‘progressive’ for the time of the album’s release in late 1960s, when most rock bassists were sticking to chord roots, root-fifth alterations, walking bass, and habanera patterns. After detailed analyses of these elements, it will be argued that Beggars’ Banquet includes the elements sounding progressive to the contemporaneous listeners. Rock bass has rarely been discussed in academic literature, but this essay suggests that a careful examination of bass lines would help understand some of the historically important aspects of rock music.
