Bill "The Buddha" Dickens is an American electric bass guitar

Bass guitar

The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

 player.

Dickens has played with a huge range of artists, including Pat Metheny

Pat Metheny

Patrick Bruce "Pat" Metheny is an American jazz guitarist and composer.One of the most successful and critically acclaimed jazz musicians to come to prominence in the 1970s and '80s, he is the leader of the Pat Metheny Group and is also involved in duets, solo works and other side projects...

, George Michael

George Michael

George Michael is a British musician, singer, songwriter and record producer who rose to fame in the 1980s when he formed the pop duo Wham! with his school friend, Andrew Ridgeley...

, Joe Zawinul

Joe Zawinul

Josef Erich Zawinul was an Austrian-American jazz keyboardist and composer.First coming to prominence with saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, Zawinul went on to play with trumpeter Miles Davis, and to become one of the creators of jazz fusion, an innovative musical genre that combined jazz with...

, Janet Jackson

Janet Jackson

Janet Damita Jo Jackson is an American recording artist and actress. Known for a series of sonically innovative, socially conscious and sexually provocative records, as well as elaborate stage shows, television and film roles, she has been a prominent figure in popular culture for over 25 years...

, Grover Washington, Jr.

Grover Washington, Jr.

Grover Washington, Jr. was an American jazz-funk / soul-jazz saxophonist. Along with George Benson, John Klemmer, David Sanborn, Bob James, Chuck Mangione, Herb Alpert, and Spyro Gyra, he is considered by many to be one of the founders of the smooth jazz genre.He wrote some of his material and...

, Chaka Khan

Chaka Khan

Chaka Khan , frequently known as the Queen of Funk, is a 10-time Grammy Award winning American singer-songwriter who gained fame in the 1970s as the frontwoman and focal point of the funk band Rufus. While still a member of the group in 1978, Khan embarked on a successful solo career...

, Mary J. Blige

Mary J. Blige

Mary Jane Blige is an American singer-songwriter, record producer and occasional actress. She is a recipient of nine Grammy Awards and four American Music Awards, and has recorded eight multi-platinum albums. She is the only artist with Grammy Award wins in Pop, Rap, Gospel, and R&B. Blige has...

, Freddie Hubbard

Freddie Hubbard

Frederick Dewayne "Freddie" Hubbard was an American jazz trumpeter. He was known primarily for playing in the bebop, hard bop and post bop styles from the early 1960s and on...

, Al Di Meola

Al Di Meola

Al Di Meola is an acclaimed American jazz fusion and Latin guitarist, composer, and record producer of Italian origin. With a musical career that has spanned more than three decades, he has become respected as one of the most influential guitarists in jazz to date...

, Dennis Chambers

Dennis Chambers

Dennis Chambers is an American drummer who has recorded and performed with John Scofield, George Duke, Brecker Brothers, Santana, Parliament/Funkadelic, John McLaughlin, Niacin, Mike Stern, Greg Howe, and many others. Despite a lack of formal training, Chambers has become well known among...

, Steve Morse

Steve Morse

Steven J. "Steve" Morse is an American guitarist and composer, best known for his work in the hard rock band Deep Purple since 1994. He began his career to form the unique styled instrumental rock band Dixie Dregs in the 1970. Morse's musical inspiration comes from country, funk, jazz fusion, and...

, Randy Newman

Randy Newman

Randall Stuart "Randy" Newman is an American singer-songwriter, arranger, composer, and pianist who is known for his mordant pop songs and for film scores....

 and The Hooters

The Hooters

The Hooters is an American rock band from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. By combining a mix of rock and roll, reggae, ska and folk music, The Hooters first gained major commercial success in the United States in the mid 1980s due to heavy radio and MTV airplay of several songs including "All You...

.

From 1983 to 1999 participated in three recording sessions of Ramsey Lewis

Ramsey Lewis

Ramsey Emmanuel Lewis, Jr. is an American jazz composer, pianist and radio personality. Ramsey Lewis has recorded over 80 albums and has received seven gold records and three Grammy Awards so far in his career.-Biography:...

: Les Fleurs, A Classic Encounter and Urban Renewal

He performed together with Victor Wooten

Victor Wooten

Victor Lemonte Wooten is an American bass player, composer, author, and producer, and has been the recipient of five Grammy Awards....

, Steve Bailey

Steve Bailey

Steve Bailey is an American bassist who is famous for his pioneering work with the six string fretless bass. He was voted runner up for "Bass Player Of The Year" in 1994 and 1996....

 and Oteil Burbridge

Oteil Burbridge

Oteil Burbridge, in Washington, D.C.), is a Grammy Award-nominated American multi-instrumentalist, specializing on the bass guitar, trained in playing jazz and classical music from an early age. He has achieved fame primarily on bass guitar during the current resurgence of the Allman Brothers Band...

 on the concert "The Day The Bass Players Took Over The World".

Dickens usually performs using Extended-range bass

Extended-range bass

Extended-range bass refers to an electric bass guitar with greater frequency range than the standard 4-string bass guitar. Bass guitars tuned one octave lower than a standard four-string instrument are also considered an extended-range bass...

es, (or "ERBs"), which are electric bass guitars with more range (usually meaning more strings, but sometimes additional frets are added for more range) than the "standard" 4-string bass guitar. Bill Dickens is best known for playing funk

Funk

Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...

 (especially speed funk).

Books

• Bass Beyond Limits: Advanced Solo and Groove Concepts, Alfred Publishing Co., Inc., 1998, ISBN 076926493X
• Funk Bass and Beyond, Alfred Publishing Co., Inc., 2003, ISBN 0757916899

External references

• MySpace official page