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Back in the old days when pop music was played by actual musicians, there was something called a "rhythm section."
This was an entity - bass, guitar, keyboards and drums - that acted as a song's engine, establishing the groove and laying down a distinctive musical bed for the vocalist or soloist.
Among the best-known rhythm sections in the '70s were the Hi Records crew, backing Memphis soul crooners like Al Green; the Meters, who recorded with any number of pop artists who traveled to New Orleans to soak up that section's unique syncopated groove; and New York's Atlantic group, who had a near telepathic communication with Aretha Franklin, among many others.
With guitarist Cornell Dupree and drummer Bernard Purdie, bassist Chuck Rainey was the engine within the engine of that latter crew. A list of his more than 1,000 album credits would fill several pages of this newspaper.
For example, that's Rainey on Quincy Jones' "Body Heat," Marvin Gaye's "I Want You," Steely Dan's...