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100 great bass players


Al Krow

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From bassplayer magazine. Thought this looked really interesting, particularly with the included clip from each - I'm going to be enjoying working through the list during lock down.

Here's the link in case of interest to anyone else:

https://www.guitarworld.com/features/the-100-best-bass-players-of-all-time

Have they missed anyone off the list that you would include?

Edited by Al Krow
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Not bothered by the order, hardly worth getting my hair off about someone had a page to fill and as every journo knows a list is your go to when you're stuck for ideas.

Many I've never heard of so that's great, I shall enjoy discovering them.

My personal list would include JJ Burnel, Phil Lynott, Bruce Foxton, Norman Watt-Roy and my all time favourite Bruce Thomas. Simply because they inspired me and still do.

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Finally got the entire thing to load without crashing.

Usual suspects of course and with 100 you'd expect them to pick up most folks' favourites. The order of course is a question of preference, but I'd have thought messrs Levin, Sklar and Babbitt would be higher up the pecking order.

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Was the list compiled by primarily guitarists? They often have a very different idea of what’s “best” compared to the people who identify as bassists. 

I couldn’t read the list on my phone as the page kept refreshing. I’m sure I’m not missing out though. 

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Well it's been put together by the bassplayer magazine team. I'm guessing they will have a fair few bassists rather than geetariats on their payroll. And, frankly, I would be very impressed if most of the guitarists I know would be able to come up with a quarter of the bass players on that list!

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9 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Well it's been put together by the bassplayer magazine team. I'm guessing they will have a fair few bassists rather than geetariats on their payroll. And, frankly, I would be very impressed if most of the guitarists I know would be able to come up with a quarter of the bass players on that list!

Ah thanks, makes sense. I thought it was a guitar magazine thingy.  I’ll try viewing on the iPad later. 

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Well it does say "The world's best bass player of all time" so I guess thats means "technically the best", but when it comes to inspiration and the pure joy of watching and hearing bass players, then for me, it got to be Norman Watt-Roy, followed closely be The "Ox" John Entwistle 

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I've no idea who 90% of them are. The one I do know about, Phil Lesh, had a very unrepresentative track as his example. Ripple is a great song (we played it a week or so after the writer died and there was hardly a dry eye in in the house, and certainly not on stage) but as an example of Lesh's bass playing, it is a very good choice.

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Most of these play within genres I have zero interest in but at least Larry Graham gets a much higher placing than in lots of other lists. Louis Johnson, Bernard Edwards and Mark King are way way too low down. No disrespect to the jazzers and fusion virtuosos, but while they may have had the chops the music they played was and still remains niche. I mean Jaco is well known within the bass/jazz-fusion world but outside of this I doubt many would ever have heard of him. 

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What people generally care about are tunes/songs. Only some (wannabe) musicians seem to care about playing prowess. I don't know of any non-player who's remotely interested in musical virtuosity and I've heard or read about many fine players who said they see themselves as songwriters  who happen to play bass etc. In another life I'd much rather be known as a great composer/songwriter than musician. 

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