I'd love to hear who it was that made you want to be a bass player. For me it was David Ellefson's playing on Peace Sells, Jason Newsted on the Black Album and Duff McKagan on Appetite.
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Jeffrey Hammond. There was magic in his lines, and I wanted in. Saved me from a life as a guitarist.
Duck Dunn
First time I heard the song Soul Man was The Blues Brothers version. I remember that night quite well. Sitting in my pickup truck in the driveway drinking beer and listening to the radio. They played Soul Man and that bass line got my attention in a big way.
First time I heard the song Soul Man was The Blues Brothers version. I remember that night quite well. Sitting in my pickup truck in the driveway drinking beer and listening to the radio. They played Soul Man and that bass line got my attention in a big way.
First Kansas's Dave Hope.
Steve Harris sealed the deal for me.
Steve Harris sealed the deal for me.
Lee Sklar and Jimmy Johnson were some of the first guys I started playing to, and still do. I'm always finding something new to me from Lee Sklar.
But it was Nashville guys like Glenn Worf, and CCM guys like Jimmie Lee Sloas that really rocked my world and inspired the most improvement.
But it was Nashville guys like Glenn Worf, and CCM guys like Jimmie Lee Sloas that really rocked my world and inspired the most improvement.
Once I discovered what a bass guitar actually was – but before I purchased my first bass – my primary influences were John Paul Jones, Randy Meisner and Sting. But I think the players who most inspired me to become a bass player were the ones I was listening to on AM radio as a kid and who remained nameless/functionless until I began researching album credits after I had already been playing bass for a few years: James Jamerson; Bob Babbitt; Wilton Felder; Ronnie Baker; Carol Kaye; and Chuck Rainey.
In no particular order...
Entwistle
Lynott
Karn
Palladino
Gustafson
Miller
Jones (that's Percy, not JP)
Levin
Entwistle
Lynott
Karn
Palladino
Gustafson
Miller
Jones (that's Percy, not JP)
Levin
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Big fat Elmer, he was the bass player in the band sitting in the stands at the high school football games my family used to go to on Friday nights when I was a lad. While everyone else was watching the game I couldn't stop watching that black 4001 and I thought that, other than boobs, the bass guitar was absolutely the coolest thing on Earth and made up my mind that I was going to learn how to do what fat Elmer was doing with that Ricky. That was probably around 1973 or so and I haven't felt any differently since.
Steve Swallow. I saw him with the Gary Burton Quartet in the way long ago, and he blew my mind. I had no presumption of ever playing the way he did, (I am proud to call myself a dumbass rock'n'roll bass player) but some part of my deep lizard brain connected to the instrument and what could be done with it. Many years later, I started learning bits and pieces of a solo he played on a live recording with John Scofield. My koan.
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Stanley Clarke,Jaco,Anthony Jackson,Chris Squire,Geddy Lee,Louis Johnson,Jimmy"Flim"Johnson.
Gene Simmons. I know he's a marginal talent on bass, but he brought it front and center. No denying his / KISS's success and influence on RNR.