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Your 5 most influential/inspirational bassists


grayn
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Brian J. Robinson (A Wilhelm Scream): Showed me that you can play more than just root/5th in pop/punk/alternative (Take a look at The Horse)

Johnny Christ (Avenged Sevenfold): Spawned my love of Stingrays, and he has amazing tone

Chris Wolstenholme (Muse): An ABSOLUTE MONSTER. Need i say more.... Phenomenal player and tone, made me push myself with my playing.

Kasim Sulton (Ex. Neverland Express/Meatloaf): I don't know, every time i saw him play i wanted to pick up my bass and play.

Matt Green (A Little Bit Outlaw Lead Guitarist): When he asked me to replace him as bassist so he could take on lead, my playing progressed so much when i joined this band, as it took me totally out of my comfort zone in terms of genre, tunings, and just general band related things.

Liam

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Too many to even contemplate but suppose initially people like Jaco, Bruce Foxton, Jamerson, Duck Dunn, Jemmott, Bernard Edwards, Pino, Larry Graham.

Now I suppose Jamerson, David Dyson ( catch him on youtube with Meshell N ), Wooten, Larry Graham, Bernard Edwards. It changes quite a lot but the best ones do stay around about in my head

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Five is hard. No order for these:

Duff McKagan - inspired me to take up the bass in the first place as a teenager, and sling my bass impossibly low, for which my fretting hand still suffers to this day!

Billy Sheehan - I saw him do a clinic after I'd been playing about a year. Never knew you could do that on the bass. Strap length adjusted to necklace like length and I spent many hours learning as much of his stuff as I could.

Sting - a great player who really showed me how a great bassline doesn't need to be complicated. Strap moved to a mid length where it has remained ever since.

James Jamerson - don't think this one needs explaining

Geddy Lee - see above

There are loads of others: Steve Harris, Duck Dunn, Macca, Randy Coven - the list goes on and on.

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Today in no particular order.

John Entwistle
Bruce Foxton
Duck Dunn
James Jamerson
Bruce Thomas

All united by the fact that they managed to play interesting bass lines that made a huge contribution to a host of great songs. On another day might be Danny Thompson, Andy Rourke or Paul McCartney.

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[quote name='JPS' timestamp='1323187537' post='1460294']
Today in no particular order.

John Entwistle
Bruce Foxton
Duck Dunn
James Jamerson
Bruce Thomas

All united by the fact that they managed to play interesting bass lines that made a huge contribution to a host of great songs. On another day might be Danny Thompson, Andy Rourke or Paul McCartney.
[/quote]

What he said.

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John Entwistle:
I love everything about him, his basslines, his tone, his spectacular collection of basses, and the fact that he signed out during a drug fuelled orgy in a Vegas hotel room full of hookers is just pure rock n' roll! :)

John Paul Jones:
I think i wore out my vinyl copy of Led Zeppelin 2 jamming along, particularly to Ramble On, still one of my favourite bass lines to this day.

Bruce Foxton:
The fact you could take virtually any song by The Jam, play the bass part on it's own and people would still know what song it was from just proves what a massive part of The Jam's songs Bruce's lines were.

Billy Sheehan:
When i first started playing a friend of mine gave me a copy of Eat 'em and smile, i thought "wow" then i bought a vinyl copy of Talas- sink yor teeth into that, got home put it on and spent the next hour or so listening to it open mouthed whilst thinking "Jesus f**king christ"

Bernard Edwards:
It was hearing Bernard's lines in Le Freak and Good Times that alerted me to fingerstyle funk and a whole new world of some of the coolest bass parts ever recorded!

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[quote name='TransistorBassMan' timestamp='1294145604' post='1077225']
In no particular order....


Jim Glennie (James)



[/quote]

:) Nice to see a James fan in here. My old band, Unkle bob, were managed by Saul Davies and we toured with James a few times. Jim is a stand up bloke and truly wonderful bassist.

Mine are;

John Entwhistle (the who were my favourite band thanks to my dad at age 3)
Bill Wyman (Decided I wanted to be in the rolling stones age 7 after seeing them live at wembley stadium)
John Mcvie (fleetwood mac probably my favorite band at the moment)
Tina Weymouth (just pure awesome)
Duck Dunn (anyone with a ginger afro, a pipe and checked trousers is cool in my books)

Chlo x

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[quote name='witterth' timestamp='1323215013' post='1460789']
OK, But, My Dad, rubbish at the Bass, superb on most other things though, he could fix/do anything!
sh*t Bass player though. :)
[/quote]
Not your dad. My dad really is a first rate player who is still pro (though on keys these days). He has traded cabs with Lemmy, jammed with Marc Bolan and played for Duck Dunn and co in Amsterdam! He had one of the first Yamaha basses in the early 70s and was the person to get me started :)

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This could change each time I answer but

Entwhistle, Burnell and Edwards for making the bass stand out when I was younger

Fuzzy Samuels, for making the bass work in cool laid back songs

and Macca, for the silly love songs line, which I got beat up for saying I liked at school

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Mark King - even though I don't really slap, he was a big influence on me when I was a young kid. His finger style playing is really, really good but often gets overlooked. He also sings really well too.

Jaco Pastorius - simply amazing !

Stanley Clarke - Phenomenal on both electric and upright.

Anthony Jackson - His funk/groove playing on the early Chaka Khan albums is awesome, as is his jazz playing on the 6 string contrabass. He also invented the 6 string bass.

John Patitucci - Again, a great player on both upright and electric (6 string).

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When I sat and thought about this, its harder than it initialy appears. The five who inspired me to pick up a bass:

John Entwistle
John Paul Jones
Duck Dunn
Phil Lynott
Bruce Foxton

The Five who most influenced my "Style"

Peter Hook
Geezer Butler
J. J. Burnel
Steve Harris
Pete Way

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