“I was in my sixth year as a studio guitarist when one day the bass player didn’t show up. The producer asked me...” How Carol Kaye became a session bass icon

Carol Kaye plays bass guitar in a Los Angeles recording studio in the mid 1960's

If plucking a ripe plum from a tree had a sound, it would resemble Carol Kaye’s signature tone – a tone that made her a ‘first-call’ bassist in the highly competitive studio session world. It wasn’t just that, though. 

Kaye is arguably the first bassist to exploit the instrument in a truly melodic fashion, a nod perhaps to her early days as a jazz guitar prodigy. Her ability to invent memorable and influential bass and guitar parts on the spot in a high-pressure situation took her to – and kept her at – the very top of the studio scene and onto more than 10,000 recordings.