The Low Frequencies of ‘Brown Sugar’
On his debut album, released 30 years ago today, D’Angelo brought in guest bassists — including Raphael Saadiq — to explore jazz, gospel and soul.
by Brad Farberman
On Brown Sugar, his gently transcendent 1995 debut, D’Angelo played most of the instruments. That’s his electric guitar, interpolating Funkadelic’s “One Nation Under a Groove,” on “When We Get By.” The impeccable rim shots opening “Shit, Damn, Motherfucker” belong to him. And the tranquil, liquid Fender Rhodes across the album is all D. But on three tracks — “Smooth,” “Lady” and “Higher” — D’Angelo enlisted a guest bass player. He didn’t need to — his keyboard bass on the title track and “Me and Those Dreamin’ Eyes of Mine,” for instance, goes above and beyond — but he likely wanted to switch things up from time to time. And the bassists who sat in brought their own personalities to the songs.
Written with D’Angelo’s brother, Luther Archer, “Smooth” features a jazz rhythm section: Mark Whitfield on guitar, Larry Grenadier on upright bass, Gene Lake on drums and D himself on acoustic piano. An in-demand player for both peers and legends (Pat Metheny, Paul Motian, Charles Lloyd), Grenadier appeared on albums by saxophonist Mark Turner and pianist Brad Mehldau the same year Brown Sugar dropped. Also a member of Fly, the bassist plays with a springy, carefree attitude on “Smooth,” eventually heating things up by diving into double time. D experimented with jazz again on the Black Messiah cut “Betray My Heart.” That song features Pino Palladino, D’Angelo’s bassist of choice in the years after Brown Sugar, but was actually recorded between Brown Sugar and Voodoo.
“Higher,” a gospel song, was written with Luther and another brother, Rodney Archer. On bass, alongside drummer Ralph Rolle and producer Bob Power on guitar, is famed session musician Will Lee, who spent 33 years in the David Letterman band. Lee, who also played on a track off Al Green’s 1995 album, Your Heart’s in Good Hands, keeps “Higher” frisky and floating with conversational, quick-witted riffing. Rolle, currently with Nile Rodgers & CHIC, shines with an airtight groove.
The staccato, full-bodied bass on “Lady” is played by Raphael Saadiq, who co-wrote the song with D. The line is deceptively simple — Thundercat famously struggled with it when he was in Saadiq’s band. D’Angelo’s biggest hit — it rose to No. 10 on the Hot 100 and was nominated for the Best Male R&B Vocal Performance Grammy in ’97 — “Lady” was also the beginning of a fruitful collaboration between the soul stars. Most notably, Saadiq co-wrote — and once again played bass on — “Untitled (How Does It Feel),” which won the Grammy for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance in 2001. On Valentine’s Day ’97, D and Saadiq also performed a revamped version of “Lady” on The Chris Rock Show, with “Spanky” Alford on guitar, Questlove on drums and Ali Shaheed Muhammad on bass. In that rendition, the bass line is completely different — proof that great art never needs to stops growing.
