Who inspired you to play bass, Paul McCartney or Paul McCartney?

Who inspired you to play bass, Paul McCartney or Paul McCartney?


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Who inspired you to play bass, Paul McCartney or Paul McCartney?
Totally not him.
For me it was mostly necessit and an interest in another role within the musical context.
 
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Pretty simple poll, just pick the bassist in the list who inspired you to start, you can pick any combination and pick up to 5 of the choices. Good luck and think before you choose.
Not inspired until i joined a cover band & had to learn beatle songs. then Id say I really appreciated him! TBH his playing never stood out, as in "What is that or oooh, cool!"his parts were never featured or the main hook! even Come together iits very subtle.
 
Not inspired until i joined a cover band & had to learn beatle songs. then Id say I really appreciated him! TBH his playing never stood out, as in "What is that or oooh, cool!"his parts were never featured or the main hook! even Come together iits very subtle.


They stand out a lot on Sgt Pepper though, especially Lucy in The Sky with Diamonds, but yeah no solos or anything like that, he always supported the songs.

 
Not inspired until i joined a cover band & had to learn beatle songs. then Id say I really appreciated him! TBH his playing never stood out, as in "What is that or oooh, cool!"his parts were never featured or the main hook! even Come together iits very subtle.
Pretty much the same thing here. Full disclosure; I was never a rabid Beatles fan in my youth. I was a little too young to appreciate what was happening during their early years, the Sullivan thing, etc., and my parents didn't like them, so I didn't really listen very hard to anything they did. As I grew up I listened to a lot of other things, was really never a freak for the top 40 and then I got into progressive rock as a teenager. I also got into a lot of headbanging stuff at that time, so if you'd asked me 'Beatles or Stones' the Stones were much more in my wheelhouse.

The person who inspired me to play the bass was the guy who set his second guitar down at rehearsal where I picked it up and was able to plunk out a bassline for the song we were learning. I had never once thought about being a bass player until that day. And it wasn't a Beatles song.

However, listening through the ear of a bassist later on, I started to notice a lot of unusual and creative movement in Paul's lines. He does have an interesting ear for melodic hooks on the bass and he uses the instrument in unusual ways that continue to somehow support the song. I can't easily play everything I've tried to learn of his because of this; it takes a bit of deep listening to figure out what he's really doing, and I like that in a bass player. So I can learn a lot from him, but he was never the first to stand out to me.