Greetings! I have been asked to write my very first column for Bass Magazine on pretty much anything regarding bass, causing my brain to spin. What on earth should I write about? Electric versus acoustic bass? The joys and horrors of traveling with instruments you love? Drummers? Bass being a function versus an instrument? As I spun out, overwhelmed with choice, I suddenly remembered this phrase: The singer is always right. At this point, you either know, you’re irritated, maybe curious, maybe all three. Read on. Say you’re playing bass on a gig. A wedding, at that. There is a singer, and you are politely playing jazz standards. Let’s say you are padding your way through “Night and Day,” solos are being dutifully passed around, sticking to the ABABCB form, C being the bridge. Everyone has finally had their say, and it’s time for the vocals to take us home. Let us further say that you’ve stuck to the form, which dictates the vocals re-enter on the bridge (C). But instead, the singer re-enters at the top of the verse (A). What do you do? Do you stick to the form, thereby almost certainly causing a train wreck, or do you do the right thing, and follow the vocals? Another instance: An instrumentalist counts off the song in the agreed tempo, but the singer indicates it’s too slow or fast by either their phrasing or gesturing to speed up or slow down. Is that the moment to disagree? Probably not, unless that’s part of your act. Do you sing? Singing is really the best way to learn and know a song, and what it takes to sing one. If you are performing music with vocals, the chances are pretty good that the vocals are the story of the music, the main focal point, what the people are listening to. Understanding (even rudimentarily) what it takes to open your mouth and sing is crucial to understanding the role and responsibility of any instrument, bass in particular. Even if you “can’t sing,” you should. Too many instrumentalists have terrible attitudes about singers, often treating them as non-musicians who got lucky, a terrible mix of deference and scorn. The truth is, a great singer is twice the musician you are, simply because they not only have to perform the music right alongside you, but they also have to animate (and remember) the text. They are responsible for telling the story of the song. Most often, the singer is the link between band and audience. This is something worth remembering, but often forgotten by many of us in the engine room. Like many, I grew up singing in bands out of necessity, with there being no obvious dedicated singer. We would all just tackle whatever we could sing and play and remember the words at the same time, with no particular concern for “quality.” I have always sung to myself since I can remember, and I enjoyed yelping the few songs per set that I could, but with no desire to be the singer guy. Bass was just way too much fun to worry about that stuff, and too confusing for me to do both