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Influential bass players


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I previously mentioned a few fusion, modern jazz geezers who I check out nowadays but back when I was a young'un the biggest inspirations were..

Dave Allen, not the wry Irish comedian but the original 4 stringer with Gang of Four and then Shriekback. To my ears some the best sounds from a bass I've ever heard were on Shriekback tunes like My Spine is The Bassline

Derek Forbes during Simple Minds Empires & Dance to New Gold Dream period. First player I heard who was right up front in the mix

Simon Gallup of the Cure. Definitely a major feature of the classic Cure period

Michael Dempsey, the original Cure bassman but his best stuff was on Sulk by The Associates. Really imaginative, out of the box pick playing.

Steve Severin -that tone he gets on Juju onwards is fantastic

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1 hour ago, The fasting showman said:

George Murray with Bowie, also the players with Bowie before him.

Don't know how I forgot Trevor Bolder, a local lad who everyone round here was so proud of (along with Mick Ronson too of course).

 

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1 hour ago, Barking Spiders said:

Derek Forbes during Simple Minds Empires & Dance to New Gold Dream period.

Totally. Empires & Dance remains one of my top five albums, very much (to my ears) a bass riff driven record. Great bassist, great album.

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2 hours ago, Dad3353 said:

An interesting tack. In my case, at infant school, we heard Saint-Saëns, Prokofiev and Liszt, and at home, Listen With Mother (Think 'Joyce Grenfell' - 'George... Don't do that..!') and 'South Pacific'. No 'pop music' until mid-teens (Yardbirds, Astrid Gilberto, Lonnie Donegan...). T'wasn't till I left education and stumbled across Jefferson Airplane that things 'took off'.

In my case (‘60s) at school we got the usual mixture of hymns, classical and popular folk songs, all of which I loved, and which I’m sure influence my tastes to this day. 

At home? Jazz. My dad was a jazz muso and wouldn’t let anything that wasn’t jazz in the house (apart from our Disney storybook albums); he took his listening so seriously that the family tv was eventually moved into the kitchen so it didn’t interfere.

On the radio the stuff that really stuck was The Beatles, the Mamas & The Papas, Simon & Garfunkel, The Doors; my regular stays at my older cousins’ was all Beatles. I probably heard Motown on the radio but it didn’t interest me at all. Then I saw ABBA win Eurovision in ‘74 and fell in lifelong love with them.

Finally, at some point in my early/mid teens my older brother came back from Uni with a bunch of Prog albums; I remember walking in from school one day to Shine On You Crazy Diamond and my world changed. 

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There's a few who made me want to play bass and who I'd love to be able to play like

 

Matt Freeman of Rancid 

Lemmy

Justin Chancellor of Tool

Jeff Matz of High On Fire

Al Cisneros of Sleep & Om & Shrinebuilder

Krist Novoselic of Nirvana (the reason I have a Thunderbird)

Lou Barlow of Dinosaur Jr

Tim Commerford of Rage Against The Machine and Audioslave 

 

I have been fortunate enough to meet Lemmy, Tim Commerford and Matt Freeman, all genuinely nice people who are obviously extremely enthusiastic about playing bass live.

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On 17/06/2021 at 11:59, MrCrane said:

I'd go with that list plus

Dee Murray

 

P.S. Bonus point for spelling Jack's name correctly, but Ashley's surname is Hutchings 😀

 

you beat me to it...  notable track was grey seal on yellow brick road, his tone and what he played on it was just out of this world. 

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  • 2 months later...

So many.

John Entwistle 

Paul McCartney 

Chris Squire

John Paul Jones

Andy Fraser

Phil Lynott 

Roger Glover

Glenn Hughes 

Mick Karn

Martin Turner

Bernard Edwards

Stanley Clarke

Mark King

Sting

James Jamerson

Louis Johnson

Geezer Butler

Flea

Tony Levin

Derek Forbes

 

Singing frontman bass players such as Macca, Phil Lynott, Sting, Glenn Hughes & Martin Turner were a major influence, particularly as I often seemed to be cast in that role, but I'm in a band with two excellent female vocalists now! 

 

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IIRC....there was always time to listen to different people but these were the ones that I rated as I was developing as a player

 

Steve Harris

Chris Squire

Jaco

Jeff Berlin

Percy Jones

Jimmy Johnson

Marc Johnson

Dave Holland

Mingus (as a composer, though, rather than as a player)

Everyone.....(I stopped being a fan boy and started focussing on the music)

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My influences come in two phases. At the beginning it was Bill Wyman and Willie Dixon, followed by Duck Dunn and John McVie. The second phase consists mainly of Duck Dunn, Nathan East and Reggie McBride. Every good bass player and every great bass line has been an influence, but these are the guys who actually informed my playing style, tone, patterns and ideas.

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On 16/06/2021 at 22:23, Sarah5string said:

There definitely needs to be more ladies in these lists, gents!

 

I've been on a Talking Heads bender this last week, for my money one of the 5 best American bands of all time, if not top 3. That's in no small part to Tina Weymouth who came up with some cracking lines, especially on the first 4 albums. Incidentally another of those 5 is Pixies whose first 4 albums are all 5 star in my book. After Kim Deal left, something was lost. Not flash no but her lines were integral to their sound.

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On 17/06/2021 at 20:57, Frank Blank said:

Totally. Empires & Dance remains one of my top five albums, very much (to my ears) a bass riff driven record. Great bassist, great album.

Yep, that succession from E&D through to NGD is one of the best 4 album runs in rock IMO. BTW I'm counting Sister Feelings Call as a separate album, to Sons & Fascination, which is also very much bass driven to whit..

 

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13 minutes ago, Barking Spiders said:

Yep, that succession from E&D through to NGD is one of the best 4 album runs in rock IMO. BTW I'm counting Sister Feelings Call as a separate album, to Sons & Fascination, which is also very much bass driven to whit..

 

 

Derek's still got the same Cherry Burst  Precision hasn't he?

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