Dave Roe / Paul Shaffer

Published: June 8, 2017, 5:15 p.m.

One of the things I love about Nashville is a profound and pervasive respect for Music City\u2019s studio and road musicians. Without them, the stars go out. The music stops. So from time to time here we zoom in on the lives and careers and thoughts of these working pickers. In the hour ahead, a bass player whose five decade journey has included work with Jerry Reed, Johnny Cash and Dan Auerbach. He\u2019s the great Dave Roe.

\xa0Roe arrived in Nashville in 1980 from his home state of Hawaii. He set songwriting dreams aside in favor of steadier work as a bass playing sideman. He lived mostly on the road working for a variety of bands. And then in 1993 he got the job for which he\u2019d become best known. Slapping the upright bass for Johnny Cash.

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