“Ready, Marshall?”

“Ready, Murphy!”

Anyone who has watched the Murphy Method instructional DVDs will recognize that frequent and iconic exchange between bassist Marshall Wilborn and pedagogue/author/guitarist/singer Murphy Henry. It’s a rhetorical question, though—whether the job involves teaching students or backing a parade of soloists, Marshall Wilborn is always ready.

His resumé includes work with the giants in bluegrass and traditional music as well as stints with such all-star ensembles as Longview. Since 1988, he has held the bass chair in the Lynn Morris Band, led by his wife—a virtuoso instrumentalist, vocalist, bandleader, and winner of multiple International Bluegrass Music Association awards.

This year, Wilborn joined the elite company of IBMA honorees, having been named Instrumental Performer of the Year in the bass category and, as a member of Michael Cleveland and Flamekeeper, a shareholder of Instrumental Group of the Year honors—an accomplishment that the soft-spoken veteran sums up as “pretty nice.”

Wilborn’s understatement mirrors his playing. In a genre dominated by artists who are seldom shy about flaunting their chops, the bass operates a step outside of the spotlight. Wilborn understands this, as well as the other side of the coin, which is that at any given moment of performance, the bass is arguably the most indispensable element in the mix.

“My playing is certainly based on a very simple approach of predominantly root and fifth,” he says. “I do find myself drawn to other things being mixed in, with the occasional slap line or solo.

“But for the most part, I hear bluegrass as mainly a I–V kind of thing.”

With soloists blazing at red-hot tempos, the bass anchors the action with more fundamental patterns than one might hear in, say, modern jazz. But it’s important to invest those patterns with the energy it takes to inspire vocalists and instrumentalists.

Wilborn emphasizes this at the end of the Slap Bass DVD, an edition of the Murphy Method series, in which he boils his message down to two points: “Take your time . . . and keep listening to that rhythm. Think of rhythm, think of rhythm, think of that beat.”

“My most important challenge is the beat and the timing and making sure that the pulse is there, no matter what I’m doing,” he says. “I wouldn’t say that’s everything, but without that unfaltering beat, nothing works very well.”

Wilborn came to that epiphany in a roundabout way. Growing up in Austin, Texas, he inherited an appreciation for music from his parents, though there wasn’t much emphasis on the beat in the music they favored. “My folks loved to listen to all kinds of classical records,” Wilborn says. “A lot of that stuff really made an impression on me; it planted the seeds of melody in my head.”

Bassist by Default

Testing the waters of performance in the 1970s, Wilborn began with bluegrass because that was what his friends were playing. “I was a hobby weekend banjo player,” he says. “But one fellow in this circle was a very talented banjo player, and we had no bass player among the bunch, so one of the guys actually said to me, ‘Marshall, why don’t you get a bass?’ That’s what got me started.”

In 1976, Wilborn bought his first bass. He progressed enough to land a gig with his future wife, Lynn Morris. He credits her with pushing him to supplement what he’d learned on his own with some formal instruction. At the time, the couple was living in State College, Pennsylvania, as members of the band Whetstone Run, and so Wilborn sought out a local teacher, David Rosi, who helped him refine his technique.

“Prior to getting together with him, I played with my left hand as a fist, gripping the neck like a baseball bat,” Wilborn recalls. “I wrapped my whole hand around the neck and strings, as opposed to noting with individual fingers. He started me all over in learning to use my fingers like a real bass player. I couldn’t even do these exercises for more than five minutes at a time, but he told me to expect that, so I’d start doing these exercises and playing scales for five minutes until my hand would get tired. Then I’d do it for 10 minutes and 15 minutes. I also became more conscious of my timing issues by working with a metronome.

“I still spend time with a metronome while warming up—I consider it my dear friend.”

His affiliation with Morris, as well as jobs with bluegrass legend Jimmy Martin, traditional music icon Hazel Dickens, and other luminaries, raised Wilborn’s profile.

In 1999, he released a solo album, Root 5, which earned an IBMA nomination for Instrumental Recording of the Year. In these uncluttered arrangements, Wilborn’s aesthetic manifests clearly. On “Old Folks at Home,” for instance, with David McLaughlin playing the melody on tenor banjo, the bass lays down a propulsive, steady slap groove, which Wilborn modifies just enough to take one solo turn without losing any momentum.

Wilborn credits his early banjo playing for his interest in slap rhythms. He nurtured it by listening to Nashville father-and-son bassists Junior and Roy Husky, Roger Bush of Country Gazette and, later, such jazz practitioners as Milt Hinton.

Still, for Wilborn the technique’s main value lies in supporting a group performance, more than its utility for solos.

“To be a part of a rhythm section and have it really working, my goodness, that’s just great,” he says. “I can’t imagine playing solos on every song and have that be more exciting or gratifying than being part of a rhythm section that really works. Of course, I’ve never been a lead guitarist or a fiddler, but I wonder at times about certain personality types that just gravitate naturally toward certain instruments.”

Picking his words sparely, just like the bass notes for the first and third beats, he concludes, “Maybe I was just meant for the bass.”

What Marshall Wilborn Plays

Marshall Wilborn plays an American Standard from the late 1930s, with Thomastik Dominant steel strings on the A and E and Lenzner gut strings on the G and D. —B.D.