Free Bass TranscriptionsI Wanna Dance With Somebody
Whitney Houston’s second album, Whitney (1987) was something of a record breaker for the singer. In fact, it was so successful that it’s hard to capture all of the achievements without writing an essay: Whitney topped the Billboard album charts for 14 weeks, was the number one album in 13 other countries (including being the first UK chart-topping album by a black female singer), and has sold over 20 million copies to date. If that wasn’t enough, the first four singles from the album all reached number one in the US. The album’s lead single, “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)”, was written to offer fans another upbeat song in the same vein as “How Will I Know”, and it certainly achieved its goal – the song earned Houston a Grammy award in addition to considerable chart success.
“I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)” was produced and co-written by none other than Narada Michael Walden, who – in addition to a prolific career as a jazz-fusion drummer for Weather Report, Jaco, Allan Holdsworth, Chick Corea, and many more – had established himself as a solo pop artist in his own right. Take a listen to the groove on “I Shoulda Loved Ya” and it’s obvious that the man understands the power of a bassline.
The synth bass part that lays the foundations for “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” was played by session bass royalty Randy Jackson. Assuming that you’re playing this on a bass guitar, rather than a synth, you’ll find that you’ll need a 5-string or detune if you want to reproduce the low Eb and Db notes faithfully.
My personal preference, however, is to use an octave pedal with 100% wet signal and play everything an octave higher than written to try and approximate the sound of a synth bass.
While you’re here, I think it’s worth drawing your attention to the fact that someone out there answered the question “What if Arnold Schwarzenegger had sung this song?”. Be warned, though, once you’ve heard this you can never un-hear it: