Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight- The Beatles (Bass and Guitar Cover)

Описание: Check out my full Abbey Road Medley guitar cover
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Golden Slumbers and Carry That Weight were recorded together as one piece, in the same July 2nd, 1969 session. John Lennon was not present, as he had been injured in a car accident. The basic lineup was Paul on piano and vocals, George on bass guitar, and Ringo on drums

Two guitar overdubs were recorded onto Carry That Weight the day after. A guitar solo was certainly performed by George, probably on his Gibson 'Lucy' Les Paul into a Twin Reverb amp. The second guitar overdub was done using a Leslie speaker cabinet, starting at a slow speed and then switched to a faster wobble, right before the end of the song. This foot switch is audible in the isolated guitar track

It is not 100% clear who performed this leslie guitar. A lot of sources say it was Paul, but it could have easily been George. The riff that was played is the same riff John performed on You Never Give Me Your Money, two months earlier. It is easy to imagine Paul coming up with the idea to mimick John's part

More controversial is which bass George used on the two songs. The general consensus is that George used a six string bass, the Fender Bass VI, and that is what I ultimately concluded and used for this cover. However, for a long time I was convinced George used a Fender Jazz Bass

George had used the Bass VI earlier in the Abbey Road sessions, on Oh! Darling. But he is seen using the Jazz Bass in the Maxwell's Silver Hammer sessions. These two basses can produce similar bright tones, but do have some tonal differences. Not to mention the jazz bass is a four string bass

After some further listening of the isolated bass part, I concluded that EVERY note that George plays is possible on either the Bass VI or Jazz. This was not the case on Oh! Darling, which includes a high-up E note that is not possible on the four-string Jazz

However, there is one key moment in George's playing that suggests he did use the six string Bass VI. At 1:15 George plays a three-octave G note descending jump. This would be possible on a Jazz Bass by hitting the high-G on the 12th fret of the G string, back to 10th of A and finally hitting the 3rd fret of the Low-E string. But it's much easier on a Bass VI by using the B-string to make this octave leap less cumbersome

Furthermore, before George hits those three octaves, he is sustaining the middle G note as he goes to the high G octave. As I said, this is possible on a four string if you started on the A string, 10th fret.
But that's not where George is starting from! He is sustaining the G on the 5th fret of the D string. The only way to hit the octave above while in that position is if you had a B-string. This was the smoking gun as far as I was concerned, and proved that George did in fact use the Bass VI

Interesting Notes:
0:56 instead of playing G, A and B all on the same D string, he slides down from A and hits B on the G string
1:04 George's Low E string was very flat
1:15 George makes a three-octave descending leap. See my description above to learn why this proves George used a six string bass
1:31 Golden Slumbers ends, Carry That Weight begins
1:38 George switches from hard stop major triads, to sliding to the major third
1:41 He plays the C major triad using hard stops, whereas before he slid up to major 3rd
1:44 He goes back to sliding up to the major third of C
1:50 He accidentally hits a C note on the G chord, and stops after hitting a quick G and B
2:01 He is late to hit the G note, after a hammer-on of D to E
2:07 George's guitar solo
2:21 He is late to hit the G note again
2:37 A clumsy attempt to play a quick descending G7 scale. He probably meant to hit G-F-E-D but instead plays G-Fsharp-Fsharp-E
2:46 He accidentally hits G and C together, instead of just C
2:50 Instead of his usual hi C-lo C-E-G riff, he now plays hi C-lo C-E-lo C
2:58 (Paul's?) Leslie guitar enters
3:05 The Leslie footswitch is engaged, speeding up the rotary speaker
3:07 Here, the song ends with the bass hammering-on G to A. The Leslie guitar ends its riff, and this is where The End (the song) begins

For this cover, I'm using my Squier Bass VI with LaBella flatwound strings into my 1965 Fender Bassman amp. George would've used their 1968 Fender Bassman on the original recording. I have the neck and bridge pickups engaged

For the guitar solo, I'm using my Gibson Les Paul Standard into a 1974 Fender Pro Reverb. The crunch is coming from my Analogman King of Tone pedal
And for the leslie guitar, I'm using my Epiphone USA Casino into the Pro Reverb with a Strymon Lex pedal. The Lex is a leslie simulator, and I'm using the preamp drive knob to recreate the crunch heard on the record

MY GEAR:
2022 Squier Classic Vibe Bass VI
2005 Gibson Les Paul Standard
2021 Epiphone USA Casino Royal Tan
1965 Fender Bassman
1974 Fender Pro Reverb
Analogman King of Tone
Strymon Lex
Neumann TLM-103

#thebeatles #fenderbass #abbeyroad