Dave Roe / Paul Shaffer

One of the things I love about Nashville is a profound and pervasive respect for Music City’s 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’s the great Dave Roe.

 Roe 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’d become best known. Slapping the upright bass for Johnny Cash.