Name 10 bass players...

[spongebob]

Dave Allen, by default, if they were naming comics! 😉

[OliverBlackman]

8 hours ago, Munurmunuh said:

Bill Wyman, though without knowing and/or caring which instrument he played

Alex James, ditto

Paul McCartney, ditto

The guy from Thin Lizzy, ditto

 

John Taylor, for being hot

Suzi Quattro, ditto

 

That guy in Queen, for being the one they can't quite place

That guy in Led Zeppelin, ditto

That guy in the Who, ditto

The one in Bros who wasn't a Goss, ditto

Are you only stopping pensioners on this street? 😁

 

Id say Paul McCartney is the one 50% would get. Other than that, no hope!

[Munurmunuh]

50 minutes ago, OliverBlackman said:

Are you only stopping pensioners on this street? 😁

 

Id say Paul McCartney is the one 50% would get. Other than that, no hope!

 

The point I was trying to make is that some bassists have achieved a degree of fame, but with their playing bass not being any part of it: Mecca for singing, Nigel John Taylor for being hot, Suzi Quattro for being both, Alex James for being on the telly making cheese, Bill Wyman being in the papers for being a nonce etc. And some bassists have a negative public awareness: eg people know that there were 4 members of Queen, so somebody must be filling the final slot. 

[SumOne]

Probably only Flea & Bootsy Collins for being Bass players. 

 

Possibly Paul McCartney, Lemmy, Sting, if people notice that they play the Bass. 

 

......then erm.....that one from the muppets. 

 

 

[Doctor J]

I'd wager most of the general public wouldn't know what a bass guitar looks like, never mind the owner of the fingers playing it.

[Leonard Smalls]

I suspect the majority would look at you blankly...

The other day I was watching a re-run of Family Fortunes (I know!!!) and the question was "Name a British Band with both male and female members".

First matey buzzed in with Take That. Next matey was asked, and said "ABBA". They had to go through a couple of family members (Destiny's Child, Spice Girls) before someone said Hear'Say... That apostrophe still appals me, btw.

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

I’m going to try this out on Mrs.H later and see what she comes up with.

[Beedster]

22 minutes ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

I’m going to try this out on Mrs.H later and see what she comes up with.

 

I sincerely hope that she puts Mr H at the top of the list 👍

[smithy]

If you're really asking the general public, I think, main answer would be: "What do you mean - bass player?!Who cares about bass players?"

Sad, but we are the forgotten minority lost on the dark side of the stage.😣

[ezbass]

Just put her on the spot and asked Lady Ez, the results, I think, are very telling:

 

“Baldy” (Tony Levin)

“Er, Al Pacino?” (Pino)

Then 2 guitar players

Finally, Sting.

[Beedster]

3 minutes ago, smithy said:

If you're really asking the general public, I think, main answer would be: "What do you mean - bass player?!Who cares about bass players?"

Sad, but we are the forgotten minority lost on the dark side of the stage.😣

Not sure they’d do much better with guitarists, likely Sheeran and Swift would top the list as people most photographed with guitars round their neck

Edited September 26 by Beedster

[smithy]

What do you mean- guitarists? !

Who cares about guitarists?😆

(I' m part of general public as well)

[Cat Burrito]

When I was at school, a lot of the girls could name John Taylor from Duran Duran. Likewise, Gary Tibbs from Adam & the Ants. And a few could name Craig Logan from Bros. I'm not sure that this would be the case now but it was at the time. 

[Rodders]

The guy who stands at the back, plays the big guitar with two strings missing. 

[Rosie C]

4 minutes ago, Cat Burrito said:

When I was at school, a lot of the girls could name John Taylor from Duran Duran. Likewise, Gary Tibbs from Adam & the Ants. 

 

Ah, there it is, you just have to write a song with the bass player name-checked in the chorus! (Ant Rap)

 

Edited September 26 by Rosie C

[diskwave]

Thing is which public are we talking about?.  My neighbour says things like. 'What's that dull drone coming from ur house'... 'It's my bass guitar Ainge, I play bass'....Q blank stare as she wonders off.

[Beedster]

33 minutes ago, Cat Burrito said:

When I was at school, a lot of the girls could name John Taylor from Duran Duran. Likewise, Gary Tibbs from Adam & the Ants. And a few could name Craig Logan from Bros. I'm not sure that this would be the case now but it was at the time. 

I went to a boys school where nearly the entire population recognised and worshipped Lemmy. The girls who I knew at the time were very much into Japan and could recognise Mick Karn albeit as the second most important band member. I'd say that the most recognisable bass player of that era was however Nick Beggs, largely as the result of him getting quite a lot of visual real estate on TOTP (mostly hair-related) and the fact that people were aware that the rhythmic percussive sound he was making was the result of abusing playing a bass guitar   

 

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

55 minutes ago, Beedster said:

I sincerely hope that she puts Mr H at the top of the list 👍

The danger with saying ‘10 bass players’ rather than ‘10 famous bass players’ is that she would do exactly that and name every bass player that I know.

I think I’m going to have to specify famous/celebrity bass players.

I would expect Sting to be in there and Geddy Lee, as we were front and centre at a Rush gig back in the day. Although I do think the younger, slim Alex Lifeson made more of an impression on her at the time.

I’ll ask her tonight.

[Burns-bass]

My wife named Alex James and Paul McCartney.

 

She had a huge crush on Alex James who admittedly was a very beautiful man in the 1990s. (Not so much now)

[fretmeister]

Probably only those who also sing.

 

Sting

McCartney

Lemmy

Mark King

 

But even then... would they know those people were actually bassists?

 

And would anyone under 40 know who Mark King is? It's all age related.

My kids are 18 and 21 and have put up with me talking about bassists for their entire lives. They are also musicians themselves, and they only knew who Sting was from his cameo in "Bee Movie".

 

As famous as The Beatles /  McCartney is we have to remember this from 2015:

 

 

[PaulWarning]

3 hours ago, SumOne said:

Probably only Flea & Bootsy Collins for being Bass players. 

 

Possibly Paul McCartney, Lemmy, Sting, if people notice that they play the Bass. 

 

......then erm.....that one from the muppets. 

 

 

I'd never heard of Bootsy Collins 😱 not my style of music, but yes, everybody has more or less  heard of the others, but wonder what percentage realise they play bass, possible Macca most because of the 'Beatle Bass'

Edit, to be fair Lemmy didn't play bass in the traditional way, he played rhythm guitar on a bass

Edited September 26 by PaulWarning

[tauzero]

Maybe Phil Lynott - after all, he's got a statue to him an' all. As have McCartney and Lemmy.

[Kev]

Amazed at how many of you think a random person on the street would know McCartney is a bass player, before we even consider anyone knowing who Jaco and Victor Wooten are! 😅

 

It's not even a slight against bass players.  At a real stretch, people may know some singers as well as band names, but that's it.

[chris_b]

Hopefully my wife can name 1 bass player. . . . but I'm not banking on it!

[Munurmunuh]

I'd never heard of Jaco or Wooten or Flea or Geddy Lee until I joined a bass forum, the only bassists names I knew I learnt from the backs of LPs and cassette and CD inlays: Steve Harris, John Taylor, Simon Gallup, Cliff Williams, Craig Adams, Jason Newsted, Andy Rourke, Kim Deal etc. Who the bassists were in the Happy Mondays or the House of Love or the Jesus and Mary Chain or Oasis or Pulp or Elastica etc, I had no idea. And I definitely had no idea who was playing the tasty bass lines in Sister Sledge songs: turned out he was the biggest influence on my sense of what a bass should sound like.