The great White Lines robbery: How a bassline by art-rockers Liquid Liquid became one of the biggest hip hop anthems of all time
by Nick Wells
Doug Wimbish of Living Colour performs live during a concert at the Frannz on July 15, 2016 in Berlin, Germany.
Doug Wimbish can look back on an esteemed career that began when he was recruited by Sugar Hill Records for the rap label's house band in the early '80s. Along with guitarist Skip McDonald and drummer Keith LeBlanc, Wimbish played on some of the biggest hip hop anthems of the time, including That's The Joint, Apache and White Lines (Don't Do It).
"On some days you would go in and it would be cool," said Wimbish in the September 2009 issue of Bass Guitar Magazine. "Then you would find out some big-name star is coming in and you would start to get nervous. I was just a kid, and I was around a lot of talent. It was fun and frightening because you never knew what you were going to get. I just tried to be prepared."
The track White Lines (Don't Do It), by Grandmaster & Melle Mel, features one of Sugar Hill's most recognizable basslines, and was voted number 32 in our readers' poll of the top 40 basslines ever. But the line was actually a sample of the house band playing a cover of Cavern, a track by art-rockers Liquid Liquid.
"A lot of Sugar Hill records that we recorded were cliched riffs that DJs would spin in the club," said Wimbish. "We would record those riffs, and that particular song, the main part was by a band called Liquid Liquid. I remember being in the studio and somebody saying, 'Alright, this is what we are going to do, we are going to go through it one time and then we are going to record - here we go, 1, 2, 3...' and you would start playing."
The Liquid Liquid bassline was originally played by Richard McGuire and the bass part was not the only steal: the Melle Mel refrain 'Something like a phenomenon' is a direct lift from the Liquid Liquid track's 'slip in and out of phenomenon'. But White Lines was credited to just Melle Mel and Sugar Hill owner Sylvia Robinson.
"We felt a combination of flattery, excitement and bewilderment," singer Salvatore Principato told The Guardian. "It was hard to process, even harder to ignore." Liquid Liquid took Sugar Hill to court over the usage but the label declared bankruptcy, meaning that the band never received a cent. "It did put us on another level," said Principato, "not so much with a mass audience, but with the insiders of the dance music scene at the time." But you imagine the money would have been nice - a court had awarded them $600,000 in damages.
Wimbish's time at Sugar Hill, meanwhile, gave him a crash course in recording that would serve him well throughout his career. "Being a studio musician was very, very interesting, but the more you do it, you more you start to understand what's going on. It's a fear of not making mistakes in front of people, and somebody stopping the band; it's not a good feeling!"
It wasn't long before Wimbish caught the attention of some high-profile artists and began landing gigs with the likes of Jeff Beck, Bruce Springsteen, Madonna, Seal, Joe Satriani, James Brown and George Clinton, his high demand earning him the title the 'Journeyman Bassist'. In 1993 Wimbish found himself in the running to fill the bass chair vacated by Bill Wyman in the Rolling Stones.
"After I'd played on Mick Jagger's album Wandering Spirit, I got another call from Mick, saying 'Dougie, can you come and jam with us?' because Bill Wyman was leaving. I was a member of Living Colour at the time, but I could see that the band was going to break up at some point, so I flew over. The only Stone I didn't know was Keith Richards, but we hit it off. Later, Mick called me up and says, 'Dougie, we'd like you to do the record', which was Voodoo Lounge."
"He told me the recording dates, but they clashed with a forthcoming Living Colour tour. I really wanted to do the Stones album, but I also wanted to do the right thing by Living Colour, so I asked Mick to give Vernon a call to ask if it was okay. I did that out of respect for Living Colour. You have to do the right thing in life. So Mick contacted Vernon, who said 'No, we really need to do this tour'. So I did the tour - and the following year Vernon broke the band up. That was a tough one, but if you join a band, you stick with them, even if it cost me an opportunity to work with the Rolling Stones."
Wimbish continued his session work, released a solo album, Trippy Notes For Bass, and joined ambient-dub project, Little Axe, in which he was reunited with Skip McDonald from his Sugar Hill days. Having struck up a rapport with Living Colour drummer Will Calhoun, the duo performed as drum and bass act Jungle Funk before the celebrated return of Living Colour in 2000.
Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five is available to buy and stream.
