Sharay Reed... Bass Groove of Thunder!

If you have not checked out Sharay Reed yet you need to wake up and smell the coffee! He's a bassist, writer and producer from Chicago and is simply the baddest gospel bassist I've ever had the pleasure of listening too. The groove that Sharay displays in these videos is simply amazing... and he plays some of the tastiest bass fills you'll of heard in a long time.

Check the video out below and listen to how melodic he is throughout the tunes... and he never gets in the way of the upper melody. So how does he play so much without getting in the way? He's using a lot of pentatonic based runs within his grooves as it gives him the ability to play busy-ish lines without getting in the way of the upper melody and the rest of the band. This is due to the ambiguous nature of the pentatonic scale as they consist of only five notes instead of seven like a regular scale.

Interview With Sharay ReedIn this interview Scott meets gospel bass legend, Sharay Reed. Sharay lives in Chicago, Illinois and is one of the most in demand bassists in the world. He has played with world famous artists such as Aretha Franklin, Branford Marsalis, R. Kelly, CeCe Winans, Boys II Men, Ramsey Lewis, and Chaka Khan.

In this interview Sharay tells us how he got started in music at school by standing on a chair to play the upright bass. We hear about how he learnt his trade on the road, but is now back at university studying composition. There are also questions on sight reading, playing bass in church and how Sharay gets to play with world famous artists such as his year long tour with Aretha Franklin. Sharay also explains how one YouTube video brought him to the attention of bassists worldwide and even an endorsement deal with Fender.