Roger the player

[Chaim]

Watched In The Flesh - Live last night after a long break. An old thought reoccurred...

Tim Renwick, I believe, said decades ago that when Roger first started to tour as a solo act he had no recollection of how the Pink Floyd material is played - chords and stuff. So Tim went through the whole Pink Floyd discography and wrote down the chords. (I think it was Tim...) This didn't surprise me when I read it, since Roger has never been a "hey, I'm a bassist - I mean a BASSIST" kind of player.

But later when I saw Roger play some old Pink Floyd material, especially on the DVD I mentioned, I was surprised how much there's still the same original feel - and even lines - in Roger's bass playing. When he plays bass on those old Floyd songs, it doesn't sound like someone gave him the chords and he started to play from them. It sounds like he never stopped playing them. There are even some bass details that Rog plays that were on the albums, like the little chromatic scale ascending to the E flat chord on SOYCD.

I wonder if it's a bit exaggerated that Roger didn't have any idea how the songs go. Or maybe stuff started coming back to him when he started playing the songs again. Or he sat down and really listened to the bass parts on the albums and didn't just rely on chord sheets someone gave to him.

Anyway, this is not a question, but an observation. Once again I was reminded of how nice it's to hear old Floyd material with Roger's feel on the bass now and then. He doesn't play like a session bassist, so it gives the music a certain kind of edge. I really love the fact that although he's not a exactly obsessed with playing he still plays bass at least live - unlike Peter Cetera who just quit playing.

[Keith Jordan]

David Gilmour played a lot of bass on the albums they recorded together because Roger wasn't quite as good. But seeing Roger in the flesh playing his Billy Bass, I actually think he is pretty good! Guy Pratt may be able to slap that bass all over the place but Roger is a good plodder!

[Chaim]

I think Roger played all of Dark Side and probably at least Shine On You Crazy Diamond on WYWH. I remember some DSOTM engineer was interviewed a decade or two ago and he didn't remember anyone but Roger playing bass in those sessions. But they had played that stuff before so Roger was familiar with it.
IMO Roger is on Echoes too. Some major 3rd fills on minor chords that David probably wouldn't have played. A Pillow Of Winds with its fretless bass is obviously David. David's songs like Childhood's End and The Gold It's In The...are probably David on bass, yeah.

David has said that at least half of all the bass on Pink Floyd records is him easily. Don't know if he was counting the albums they did after Roger departed. I think David said that he could do it quicker. I can see that. If Roger was not a natural musician, he probably needed more time to become familiar with new material. And at least with something like Obscured By Clouds there were probably some serious deadlines. And Roger certainly wasn't the kind of player who would go "Hey, I'm the bass player in this band".