f there was a Mount Funkmore for the greatest funk bassists, Marcus Miller’s face and trademark porkpie hat would be sculpted into that musical monument.
For more than four decades, the Grammy-winning bass player has inspired countless listeners around the globe to Get Up Off That Thing. He has created some of funk music’s most infectious bass grooves, and his muscular bass lines can be heard on records by Michael Jackson, Chaka Khan and Luther Vandross. His blistering live version of “Run for Cover” is a textbook example of playing “in the pocket”— that magical moment when a band’s rhythm section locks into a groove that’s so tight that the musicians can’t help but nod and smile at one another.
Miller honed his musical chops during funk’s ‘70s golden age when songs from groups like the Ohio Players and Parliament pumped from speakers in dorm rooms, high school dances and “blue light in the basement” house parties. It was a time when funk music became “the chocolate-colored soundtrack to a golden age of music,” the cultural critic Michael A. Gonzales once wrote.
“There’s no sad funk songs,” says Miller, now 65. “Funk’s primary purpose is to get people moving, dancing and shaking their behinds.”
