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Bob Babbitt was born Robert Andrew Kreinar in Pittsburgh in 1937 and became a core bassist in Motown’s Funk Brothers from 1966 to 1972. Rather than serving as a backup to James Jamerson, he traded sessions with him, bringing a precise, anchored feel suited to soul’s shift into the 1970s. His bass drives Stevie Wonder’s Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles’ The Tears of a Clown, Edwin Starr’s War and Marvin Gaye’s Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) and Inner City Blues, along with records by the Temptations, Freda Payne and Dennis Coffey.

When Motown moved to Los Angeles, Babbitt went east to New York and made regular trips to Philadelphia, joining MFSB, the house band of Philadelphia International Records, where he learned to play behind the beat under lush strings. In New York he became a studio chameleon for artists from Frank Sinatra to Alice Cooper. The 2002 documentary Standing in the Shadows of Motown brought him public recognition. He joined the Music City Walk of Fame in June 2012 and died of brain cancer weeks later, on July 16, 2012, at 74.

• In Philadelphia he played on the Spinners’ The Rubberband Man and Gladys Knight and the Pips’ Midnight Train to Georgia.
• His credits include Jimi Hendrix’s posthumous Crash Landing, Yoko Ono’s Feeling the Space and Bonnie Raitt’s Streetlights.
• From 1968 to 1970 he played in the rock group Scorpion with Mike Campbell, Ray Monette and Andrew Smith.
• In March 2011 he played live on American Idol’s Motown week behind Jacob Lusk’s You’re All I Need to Get By.
• Phil Collins recruited him for the 2010 Motown tribute Going Back, and Bass Player magazine ranked him 59th among the greatest bassists.