James Lee Jamerson (January 29, 1936 – August 2, 1983) was an American bassist. He was the bassist on most of the Motown Records hits in the 1960s and early 1970s, though Motown did not credit session musicians on their releases until 1971, and is now regarded as one of the greatest and most influential bass players in modern music history. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. As a session musician he played on twenty-three Billboard Hot 100 number-one hits, as well as fifty-six R&B number-one hits.
In its special issue "The 100 Greatest Bass Players" in 2017, Bass Player magazine ranked Jamerson number one and called him the most important and influential bass guitarist. In 2020, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Jamerson number one in its list of the 50 greatest bassists of all time.
James Lee Jamerson was born on January 29, 1936, in Edisto Island, South Carolina, to James Jamerson Sr. and Elizabeth Bacon. He was raised in part by his grandmother, who played piano, and his aunt, who sang in a church choir. As a child he was a competent piano player and performed in public, and he briefly played the trombone. As a teenager he was a reserved person, and passionate about music. He listened to gospel, blues, and jazz music on the radio.
Jamerson moved with his mother to Detroit in 1954. He attended Northwestern High School, where he started playing double bass (also known as upright bass). He began playing in Detroit area blues and jazz clubs and was influenced by jazz bassists Ray Brown, Paul Chambers, and Percy Heath. He was offered a scholarship to study music at Wayne State University, but declined. After graduating from high school, he continued performing in Detroit clubs. He joined blues singer Washboard Willie's band and later toured with Jackie Wilson. His growing reputation started providing him opportunities for session work at various local recording studios. Starting in 1959, he found steady work at Berry Gordy's Hitsville U.S.A. studio in Detroit, home of Gordy's Motown record label. He played bass on the Smokey Robinson single "Way Over There" (1959), John Lee Hooker's album Burnin' (1962), and the Reflections' "(Just Like) Romeo and Juliet" (1964). He became a member of a core of Motown studio musicians who informally called themselves the Funk Brothers. This close-knit group performed on the vast majority of Motown recordings in the 1960s. Jamerson's earliest sessions were performed on double bass, but in the early 1960s he switched to playing primarily an electric Fender Precision Bass.
Like Jamerson, most of the Funk Brothers were jazz musicians who had been recruited by Gordy. For many years, they maintained a schedule of recording during the day at Motown's small basement "Studio A" (which they nicknamed "the Snakepit") and playing in jazz clubs at night. They also occasionally toured the U.S. with Motown artists, though Jamerson stopped touring in 1964 and began to do studio work on a full-time basis. For most of their career, however, the Funk Brothers went uncredited on Motown singles and albums, and their pay was considerably less than that received by the main artists or the label, hence their occasional freelance work elsewhere. In 1968, Jamerson was put on retainer for $1,000 a week (equivalent to $9,258 in 2025), which afforded him and his expanding family a comfortable lifestyle.
Jamerson's session works at Motown include most of the label's hit songs of the 1960s and early 1970s. His works include hits such as "You Can't Hurry Love" by the Supremes, "My Girl" by the Temptations, "Shotgun" by Jr. Walker & the All Stars, "For Once in My Life" and "I Was Made to Love Her" by Stevie Wonder, "Going to a Go-Go" by the Miracles, "Dancing in the Street" by Martha and the Vandellas, "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" by Gladys Knight & the Pips and later Marvin Gaye, "Reach Out I'll Be There" and "Bernadette" by the Four Tops, and most of Gaye's 1971 album What's Going On. He occasionally recorded for other labels, such as on "Boom Boom" by John Lee Hooker in 1962 and "Higher and Higher" by Jackie Wilson in 1967. Motown released 537 singles and over 200 albums in the 1960s. According to fellow Funk Brothers in the 2002 documentary Standing in the Shadows of Motown, Gaye was desperate to have Jamerson play on his song "What's Going On", and went to several bars to find him. When he found Jamerson and brought him to the studio, the bassist was too intoxicated to stand upright, so he played while lying flat on his back.
Jamerson is reported to have played on nearly every Motown recording between 1963 and 1968, which includes over 60 top-fifteen pop singles. He performed on 23 number-one hits on the pop charts, a record surpassed only by Paul McCartney of the Beatles, who has cited Jamerson as his biggest influence. Jamerson also performed on 56 number-one hits on the R&B charts.
Jamerson is noted for expanding the musical style and role of bass playing in popular music of the time, which had previously (in 1950s and '60s R&B, rock and roll, and country) largely consisted of root notes, fifths, and simple, repetitive patterns. By contrast, many of Jamerson's bass lines relied heavily on chromatic runs, syncopation, ghost notes, inversions, and frequent use of open strings. His nimble bass playing was considered an integral part of the "Motown sound". He created melodic lines that were nonetheless locked to the drum groove.
Jamerson's transition from double bass to electric bass guitar came at a time when the electric bass was a relatively new instrument, and its use and style of play was not well-established. Jamerson's background as a jazz musician and upright bassist informed his playing style, and over time his technique and improvisational approach became more nuanced. By mid-1960s, his style had become an indispensable part of the Motown sound, and in turn impacted popular music. Early examples of Jamerson's impact are "Rescue Me" by Fontella Bass and "You Won't See Me" and "Nowhere Man" by the Beatles.
In a 1983 interview with Musician magazine, Jamerson said that Motown's songwriting-production team "would give me the chord sheet, but they couldn't write for me. When they did, it didn't sound right... When they gave me that chord sheet, I'd look at it, but then start doing what I felt and what I thought would fit... I'd hear the melody line from the lyrics and I'd build the bass line around that."
Bassists who have noted Jamerson's contribution or been influenced by him include Rocco Prestia, Anthony Jackson, Pino Palladino, Paul McCartney, Bob Babbitt, Nathan Watts, Will Lee, Geddy Lee, Chuck Rainey, Marcus Miller, Phil Chen, John Entwistle, Michael League, Mike Watt, Sting, John Paul Jones, Bernard Odum, Victor Wooten, Mike Mills, Robert DeLeo, Glenn Hughes, Tommy Shannon, Suzi Quatro, Ron Asheton, Tony Sales, Peter Cetera, Robert Kool Bell, Bootsy Collins, Flea, Jaco Pastorius, Stanley Clarke, Michael Henderson, Jack Bruce, John Patitucci, Jason Newsted, Rick Danko, Garry Tallent, Alan Gorrie, Jerry Jemmott, Andy Fraser, Brian Wilson and others.
Shortly after Motown Records moved to Los Angeles in 1972, Jamerson moved there himself and found occasional studio work, but his relationship with the label officially ended in 1973. In Los Angeles, he performed on hits such as "Neither One of Us" (Gladys Knight & The Pips, 1973), "Boogie Down" (Eddie Kendricks, 1974), "Boogie Fever" (The Sylvers, 1976), "You Don't Have to Be a Star" (Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr., 1976), and "Heaven Must Have Sent You" (Bonnie Pointer, 1979). He also played on recordings by Robert Palmer (Pressure Drop, 1975), Dennis Coffey (Instant Coffey, 1974), Wah Wah Watson (Elementary, 1976), Boz Scaggs (Slow Dancer, 1974), Dennis Wilson (Pacific Ocean Blue, 1977), Eloise Laws (1977), Smokey Robinson (1978), Ben E. King (1978), Hubert Laws (1979), Aretha Franklin (Aretha, 1980), Tavares (1980), Joe Sample/David T. Walker (Swing Street Cafe, 1981), and Bloodstone (1982). However, Jamerson was not working with a steady group of musicians in Los Angeles as he had in Detroit, and he was not as free to improvise. He felt out of place, and over time his worsening alcoholism affected his work. As other bassists went on to use high-tech amplifiers, roundwound strings, and simpler, more repetitive lines incorporating new techniques such as slapping, Jamerson's style fell out of favor with local producers as he was reluctant to change. By the 1980s, he was unable to get any serious session work.