Dig, if you will, a flashback: As the over-the-top, heavily synthesized 1980s come to a close, a dreadlocked flower child straight out of the ’60s steps onto the music scene. Like Prince, he grooves and solos with equal intensity on nearly every instrument, a throwback to warmer, pre-MIDI times. He excels at balls-out rockers, tender ballads, and everything in-between, and on songs like “Let Love Rule” “Fear,” and “My Precious Love,” his bass playing is loud and proud, the perfect melodic counterpoint to his instantly vintage guitar parts and sincere message of love and peace. Thirty-five years later, Lenny Kravitz is still a bold dreamer and one-man rhythm section. Although he’s best known as a Grammy-winning, chart-topping singer, performer, and guitarist, Kravitz’s bass lines on songs like “Always on the Run” (Mama Said), “Thin Ice” (Circus), “Live” and “Fly Away” (5),  “Stillness of Heart” (Lenny), “Sistamamalover” (Baptism), “Dancin’ Til Dawn” (It Is Time for a Love Revolution), “Black and White America” (Black and White America), “Sex” (Strut), and “Low” (Raise Vibration) prove that he’s dead serious about sophisticated rumble. Henry Hirsch, LeBron Scott, Tony Breit, and Jack Daley made early contributions in the studio, but Kravitz has played nearly all the bass on his albums since 1995, and he hasn’t brought in another bass player since 2011. The bassists who’ve joined him on the road, a select group that includes Daley, Fernando Rosa, Adi Oasis, and Gail Anne Dorsey, have made it a priority to reprise his signature 4-string style. On Kravitz’s twelfth album, Blue Electric Light, his 4-string and synth bass lines are perhaps more confident than ever. Inspired by the early ’80s, when he briefly adopted the name Romeo Blue, Blue is a peek into his studio mind before 1989’s Let Love Rule introduced him to the world. The album opens with a thick, plucked part on “It’s Just Another Fine Day,” and its other low-end flavors include big, fat synth bass (“TK421,” “Human,” “Let It Ride,” “Spirit in My Heart”), nods to Prince (“Stuck in the Middle,” “Heaven,” “Blue Electric Light”), sunny bounce (“Honey”), key bass and plucks (“Bundle of Joy”), slick guitar/bass doubling (“Paralyzed”), and upbeat ’70s stadium rock (“Love Is My Religion”). Blue Electric Light, a thrilling, full-color ride that’s exquisitely paced, hints at what will surely be a knockout concert experience, and as Kravitz said before we began our interview, “The bass is essential.” When did you get started? I started with piano as a kid, then guitar, then drums, and then I went out and bought a bass in junior high. I never had any formal lessons. My lessons were records. What bass players were you playing along with? Verdine White, who has given me so much life. Bootsy. Paul McCartney. John P