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What period/style of music inspired you to start playing?


TheGreek
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I sang in Eisteddfods at school and had my fair share of tennis racquet guitar moments and I liked the feeling I got from singing some of the hymns in Sunday school but the real inspiration came from Ravel's Bolero and Peter and the Wolf. That was what sent me home wanting to get involved.

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More 70's/80's Heavy Rock & Prog, leading on to Thrash Metal, leading onto Punk, leading back to Metal, leading back to Heavy Rock.

Blame Geddy Lee & Geezer Butler mainly, but also Cliff Burton amongst others.

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As I was growing up in the late 60s and early 70s rock music inspired me to learn to play guitar and I played until my early 20s. This was followed by a musical void, playing-wise, until my late 40s when I bought a bass. Although my tastes are a lot more eclectic nowadays I've never really grown out of it and still listen to that genre/era through choice.

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Being old, it was the Beatles and Motown. The first song that really made me sit up and listen to the bass part was Tears of a Clown - Smokey Robinson. I thought it was Jamerson for quite a while until I discovered it was Bob Babbitt who played on the session. Magic.

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Following years of interest in big deep instruments a love of Rush, and a secret and slightly embarrassing (for a confirmed prog rocker) of Hot Chocolate's Tony Wilson's bass lines. Bought a Joni Mitchel album, Hejira, in 1981, quite at random, to see what she sounded like ... first track "coyote" Jaco Pastorious' soaring bass lines replete with weird chords and harmonics. Then a friend said he'd "discovered" this great band Weather Report with a "different kind of bass playing". That was it .. off down the second hand bass shop for a sunburst jazz bass copy followed by an afternoon of ripping the frets out ...and a decade of Morrisey Mullen with Dill Katz or Joe Hubbard, Shakatack and level 42, Mick Kahn and Stan Clarke to Kai Ekhardt, Etienne M'bappe, Tony Grey, Lorrie Cottle.. (and lots of great double bass players) ... precisions, flat wounds and four chord rock bands still leave me cold. but each to his own.

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[quote name='TheGreek' timestamp='1495364881' post='3303206']
I see lots of posts where people say "Joe Bloggs...great player...great inspiration" - half of the people I've never even heard of.

Never a great fan of Punk or Heavy/Prog Rock, for me inspiration came from the late 70s and early 80s with the funk/soul rise - bands like Light of the World, Cameo and Rose Royce. Later inspired by Reggae and lovers rock with Sly & Robbie and Aswad.

For you?
[/quote] It was the same for me but the other way round with reggae coming first then jazz funk and soul ,
[the latter often via hip hop beaks]

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I started in mid-90s and it was the 90s rock that made want to play. Jeff Ament and Robert DeLeo were particular favourites, players such as Les Claypool and Flea were important too. Always had a soft spot for Jamiroquai since day one as well, and Sade's "Greatest Hits" was spinning quite often in that early period of romantic life, so I always wanted to play more than just rock.
With my first bass I bought an instruction book written by Wojtek Pilichowski where he recommended some listening (got me into fusion rather soon).

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I could probably cite four or five bands/players. Steve Priest (Sweet), Overend Watts (Mott The Hoople/Mott/British Lions), Gene Simmons (*cough*), Geddy Lee, Glen Matlock (Sex Pistols, but more importantly, The Rich Kids) and Martin Gordon (Sparks/Radio Stars).

I remember learning all (and I mean all) of Geddy Lee's parts for Rush/FBN/COS/2112&ATWAS; hours and hours of work when I should have been studying for exams. I'd have this recurring dream where Rush would be playing a gig somewhere and there'd be a tannoy announcement, 'Due to unforseen circumstances an injury to Geddy Lee has resulted in the band having to withdraw from tonight's show.' and I'd be there in row 20 shouting, 'Me! Me! I know all his parts!'

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Definitely 1970's music mainly reggae from the Wailers, funk bands like Earth Wind & Fire, Ohio Players, Blackbyrds, music from the Stax sound then later on when I discovered return to forever and jazz-funk from the likes of Jeff Lorber Fusion, Grover Washington Jr, Ronnie Laws, The Crusaders. etc.

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To answer the question correctly, the first "non chart" music I ever heard was Led Zeppelin II in 1970 as a 12 year old and JPJ just had an effect on me and made me want to be a bass player. In the immediate aftermath I quickly discovered Cream, Free, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Rush (saw there 1st ever Uk gig 40 years ago today at Sheffield City Hall, in fact a guitarist friend's tribute band Bravado are playing that exact setlist in the City Hall Ballroom tonight!)
All in all the period was a great indoctrination into the wonders of the lower frequencies and it never goes away 😊

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Combination of early New Orleans Jazz (via my Dad) and AFN+Radio Luxembourg playing old Fats Domino and Tennessee Ernie Ford stuff from the late forties & early fifties.

Still love that stuff, but once Lonnie Donegan came on the scene I was slowly but surely dragged into the fledgeling rock and roll movement.
First actual Rock and Roll band I was in was formed i 1961/2 but I started playing in a jazz band in 1954, aged 10.

Nothing really changes, though.
There is still good music and bad music

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I believe my first album I brought with my own money was by a guy called Shaggy and apparently it wasn't him. How right he was.

Years later I got into blink 182 heavily that made me pickup guitar to possible pick up girls.

Wanted to try bass once I was a bit older and had come to my senses.

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In the main, it was early 70s music that inspired me to start playing bass; Bowie, Alice Cooper, Roxy Music, Santana.

Early punk bassists further inspired me too, especially Andy Warren when he was in Adam & The Ants and Steven Severin in Siouxsie & The Banshees.

Lots of other music genres over the last 40 years have continued to inspire my continuing love of music and bass playing and the great thing is, that passion shows absolutely no signs of changing or slowing down! 😊

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70s funk and Early 80s ....
had everything tower of power did to date,
Early Level 42
also had a great Lp by an obscure band called Black smoke, never seen it since i lent it out. well worth checking out
[url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZfdP201A9c"]https://www.youtube....h?v=HZfdP201A9c[/url]

Collected George Benson as well, had everything he did, all the early cti stuff so Ron Carter was also in there

Really liked Dave margin when he was with santana as well, i so badly wanted that sound he got on "song for my brother" it was as crunchy as hell.
song for my brother
[url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5nUNCTcZog"]https://www.youtube....h?v=z5nUNCTcZog[/url]
Dave Margin bass solo
[url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp7w6x1Fe7Y"]https://www.youtube....h?v=hp7w6x1Fe7Y[/url]

Bootsy.
Colin Hodgkinson
james brown
Jerry Preston..Maceo Parker
[url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JawQn7gKdJo"]https://www.youtube....h?v=JawQn7gKdJo[/url]

Double bass
Lars Danielsson, very inspiring, great electric playing with maceo as well
ron carter
Phil Palombi, big fan since i caught him playing with curtis stigers and what a ultra nice guy, well worth checking out.
Pierre Michelot..... If you love double bass check out his cd Round about a bass, top draw big band stuff

Hammond groove bands, players
soul live
jimmy smith ( caught him in manchester on his last trip over here)
Rubin wilson
lonnie smith
Ronnie Foster

90s was very inspired by one of our members gaz, Gary Crockett with his work with JTQ and later Perceptions just a rock solid player. must of seen them 10 times
Richard Searle, Corduroy
julian Crampton, down to the bone
nils landgren

New cool collective... so inspiring such a collection of styles, all fantastic writing from this band
Top on my list as the next band to see live.
[url="http://www.newcoolcollective.com/"]http://www.newcoolcollective.com/[/url]
[url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwybOlUNB9g"]https://www.youtube....h?v=cwybOlUNB9g[/url]

Latly, Brian Culbertson, check his blog on youtube from building his studio to creating a funk cd, loads of great bass playing and info here..

Loads i have missed,
And so it goes on.........

Edited by funkgod
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