Word: basse
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Crime Supplement. Fish are clearly Boyle's primary fixation. He keeps an aquarium in his Croton-on-Hudson house, partly for receiving specimens he seines from the river, partly to exercise his empathy for finned creatures. The striped-bass fingerlings, he comments cheerfully, "were gamboling all over the tank like Labrador pups." Just as canaries were once carried into coal mines to warn the miners of poisonous gases, Boyle tends to use fish as a measure of man. Bass taken from the Hudson off Bayonne have a taint of petroleum; shad roe is more than just fishy; sturgeon taken...
Family has been together since 1967, but remained relatively unknown until this year. Ric Grech and Jim King left the group last summer, and Grech went on to play bass for a widely publicized, but short-lived coalition known as Blind Faith. The foundation of the group-singer Roger Chapman and guitarist John Whitney-remained, however, and they created a new Family. They eliminated Grech's cello and King's oft-times superfluous saxophone, and supplanted them with vibes and an electric flute...
Apparently the results were too obscure for AM radio and perhaps not opaque enough for WBCN. The album was a much less driving sort of rock. Of course it had guitars, bass and drums, but in combination with flute, violins, saxophone and vibes these instruments became less important. At any rate, it was before its time and, unfortunately, sold poorly...
...first Blue Grass recording was made in 1940, the successful "Mule-skinner Blues," a tune authored by another pioneer of early country music, Jimmy Rodgers, the "Singing Brakeman." In these early days, Bill Monroe's band contained mandolin, guitar, fiddle and string bass, the last of these being the only instrument not found in traditional country music. In 1945 the Blue Grass band took the form in which it remains today, with the addition of a five-string banjo, played by Earl Scruggs in the now universal three-finger style. which bears little resemblance to the earlier "claw hammer" style...
...features high and unusual vocal harmonies. Breaks between verses and strictly instrumental numbers show off the extreme virtuosity employed on fiddle, mandolin, and banjo: the playing incorporates, like jazz, a great deal of improvisation within set patterns. Lead work is supported by the rhythmic foundation of guitar and string bass. Musicians in the field are known for the astounding sophistication of their techniques; most do not read music and have received no formal instruction on their instruments...