Today we’re going to look at that old chestnut Mustang Sally. Yup, pretty much every bass player gets to play this one at some point. If you play bars or any kind of function or wedding gig, this one is going to come up and with good reason.
But did you know that most people learn this riff wrong? With good reason. It’s tough to hear all the notes in there on the original Wilson Pickett recording. So today we’re going to extract the bass line using lalal.ai and learn what Tommy Cogbill REALLY played!
Mustang Sally – Why Every Bassist Learns It WRONG!!
When you learn Mustang Sally you’re likely to learn one of two versions. There’s obviously the original Wilson Pickett classic or some people use the cover version from the film The Commitments. Today we’re looking at the Wilson Pickett original and the bass line played by studio legend Tommy Cogbill.
I’ve seen many different transcriptions of this bass line and most of them work around this general riff:
But using the amazing LALAL.ai website I was able to extract the original bass line which revealed some interesting differences:
Mark, this is fantastic. I’ve got a Hal Leonard Book for R&B Bass that the writer swears he’s got it figured out and that everyone else plays it wrong. They didn’t have lalal.ai in their corner when they wrote it with a much more complex rhythm.
Great video. Which Fender bass is he playing?
Good ol’ Precision Bass.
Precision Bass
Brilliant. Spot on. But my bass is stuck in his “been playing it this way for 30 years” rut and refuses to budge. What to do?