davidofyork

For the benefit of people stumbling across this thread in the future, I wanted to add one important fact: the amazing bass line on The Night was created and played by Joe Long (Joseph LaBracio) of the Four Seasons. That may seem obvious, but I suspect many people hearing the tune, and knowing it was recorded for the MoWest division of Motown, will assume that it was a Motown production, utilising session musicians. When Motown relocated to Los Angeles in 1972, the Detroit musicians were made redundant. James Jamerson relocated to LA for a while but eventually returned to Detroit (this is described in Jack Ashford's autobiography). In LA he was just one of many great session players. But this bass line is the work of the one and only Four Seasons' member Joe Long, and bass players everywhere should know his name. https://thatfourseasonssound.typepad.com/seasonally/2021/04/joe-long-bye-bye-baby-5-september-1932-21-april-2021.html