I was going to do a “Top 10” list of my favorite bass players, but I came up with 11 names, so in the spirit of Nigel Tufnel, I’m going that extra digit for sheer intensity’s sake! These are all people who have made me appreciate the instrument in a special way and whom I personally feel have contributed something unique to the way the instrument is used. The order is somewhat arbitrary, though some names do have more significance to me than others and I’ll make note of that as I go along and talk about each.
The bass guitar, in my mind, was initially a rather mysterious presence and lacked the glitz and glamour of its more easily identifiable six stringed cousins. When I first started seriously listening to music, I didn’t quite comprehend what it was, but gradually, I discovered bands and players who brought my attention to it and made me realize that the bass had a special power all its own. This is something which has become more and more apparent as “bass music” (funk, dub, drum & bass, downtempo, dub-step, etc) has gained prominence since the 1970s.
It was really funk and reggae music which first gave the instrument a place at the front of the pack, making it a tool for driving song structures from the ground up. Where it was traditionally used as merely a means to fill out the lower end of the frequency range and give an arrangement a sense of presence, it was also neglected for a long time because most people didn’t listen to music on stereo systems capable of reproducing those frequencies. It was only in the late 1960s when “high fidelity” sound systems became more ubiquitous that you start to hear producers going for full stereo mixes as a default instead of focusing on radio friendly mono productions. FM radio also made it possible to broadcast in hi-fi and the album came into its own as an art form rather than as a medium for hosting a hit single and a bunch of filler tracks. When all these factors came together, you started to hear the instrument take on a new roll as a critical component rather than merely a sonic spectrum filler.
With that in mind, let’s get into some specific individuals who are responsible for bringing the bass into prominence.
Carol Kaye
I’ll begin with this lady though my appreciation of her has only surfaced in recent years with the release of the documentary film, The Wrecking Crew. Though I’m old enough to have grown up with many of the 1960s hits she played on, I had no idea who the musicians on so many of those records were until seeing this film. It was a true moment of revelation to witness this unmasking of these incredibly talented and significant music makers. Finding out she was responsible for the bass line in Sony & Cher’s hit,
The Beat Goes On, blew my mind as it was one of the very first songs I can recall where a bass line was integral to the essence of the song. She may not have a writing credit for it, but that hook is EVERYTHING to me when I remember it. And then there’s that descending step bass at the beginning of Glen Campbell’s
Wichita Lineman, another example of the instrument being used to provide an immediately recognizable musical motif, one which identifies the song the instant it saunters out of the speakers. Those are only a couple of examples in a career spanning decades and hundreds, if not thousands, of recordings.
John Deacon
As a teen in 1977, Queen was the first band I got into in a BIG way. They were the first group I delved into in order to pick apart what they were doing and try to figure out what was going on structurally. Before them, I’d listen to music and only hear a totality of sound and not be able to identify individual elements and instruments. With Queen, however, I was so fascinated by what they were creating, the palette of sounds they were using and the variety of styles they encompassed, that I was compelled to analyze it and decipher what was the source of each sound. Though there was more than enough to digest with the voices and Brian May’s guitar parts, John’s bass playing still managed to come through and distinguish itself. Deacon was the quintessential rock bass player in many regards, often seeming stoic and quiet, but there was a lot going on under the surface. He impressed me to such an extent that I decided to switch instruments I was learning at the time. I had taken up guitar lessons that year and, after getting into Queen, I felt driven to bug my parents to buy me a cheap Fender bass copy (as close to the one John played as possible) and start taking lessons on
that instead. John proved himself again and again as a song writer and, on
Under Pressure and
Another One Bites the Dusk, he showed precisely how a bass line could become a hook that could sell a million copes of a record.
Jah Wobble
John Wardle, Christened “Jah Wobble” by a drunk, slurring Sid Vicious, was a buddy of Johnny Rotten’s during the Sex Pistols days. He was one of the "gang of Johns", which included John Beverly (Sid), Johnny Rotten and a fellow named John Gray. He was a rough and tumble punk with a reputation for putting the booze back. When the Sex Pistols fell apart, Rotten became Lydon again and recruited Wobble, who had no real experience, to play bass in his new band. It was a stroke of luck and possibly divine intervention that put the bass guitar in this man’s hands because it became an instant appendage for him and he took to it like the proverbial duck to water. Right out of the gate, he guided the instrument into a new zone of significance in Public Image Ltd. This is apparent from the first notes of the first single from their “
First Issue” debut LP. That bass line kicks off the song,
Public Image, and announces the arrival of the band with a thrust and vigor that left no question as to their intent. From there, Wobble would provide the foundations of their sound throughout two seminal LPs, the second of which,
Metal Box, cementing his position in music history as a true innovator. Borrowing from reggae and “Krautrock” and combining the two elements into a fusion of low frequency omnipotence, Wobble set the controls for the heart of the sub and never looked back. Since leaving PiL, he’s secured himself as the ever prolific and consistent producer of quality bass music spanning over 4 decades now. His influence on my own creative direction has been immeasurable and unparalleled.
Mick Karn
Japan first came to my attention in early 1980 with the purchase of their 3rd album,
Quiet Life. Beneath all the makeup and pretty clothes, they turned out to be a rather talented collective of self taught musicians and Mick Karn easily stood out with his slippery fretless bass work. The way it slid around underneath Steve Jansen’s syncopated percussion, such as on songs like
The Art of Parties, created a a sinuous, fluid motion that gave the foundations of the music a kind of elasticity that I’d never heard in other bands. Karn’s solo work continued to explore the range of his instrument until his tragic, untimely death in 2011.
Holger Czukay
Far more than simply a bass player, Czukay nevertheless established a distinctive presence for the instrument in CAN and in his solo works. The primal, muted thud of his playing technique meshed with Jaki Liebezeit’s drums in a way that fused them into a single entity, accenting the bottom end of the rhythm section. It was an understated approach, but hid a powerful propellant which was crucial to the interplay of grooves that was CAN’s hallmark in the best of their songs such as
Halleluhwah. You can see this in some of the live footage of their performances, where Holger’s bass and Jaki’s drums push the energy levels of the music and build up tension as they strain against each other while remaining seamless.
Tina Weymouth
Talking Heads stood out from the pack of CBGBs bands for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which was their petite little powerhouse of a bass player. At a time when rock music was largely dominated by men, she was a precious anomaly - this diminutive mouse of a girl busting out the funkiest grooves on that beast of an instrument. Her most notable moment with it came with the infectious dance hit from her side project, Tom Tom Club, and their funk masterpiece,
Genius of Love. Here was a bass line that would get sampled and recycled again and again, for generations of hip-hop music fans. On Talking Heads transcendental afro-fuck classic,
Remain In Light, her playing took on dimensions heretofore unheard in alternative rock.
Peter Hook
Joy Division took the sound of the bass in a completely different direction than most other bands, particularly within the post punk scene. Developed primarily for practical reasons, so that it could be heard more clearly on stage, Peter Hook decided to emphasize the top end frequencies of the instrument and inject a melodic, riff-centric approach that became Joy Divisions calling card. His riff for
She’s Lost Control is a perfect example of this technique being used to stamp a song with an unmistakable trademark, something that is recognizable within seconds of it sounding out.
Bootsy Collins
William Earl Collins may have got his big break with James Brown, but he was never suited to Brown’s micromanaging, regimented band leading style. Thankfully, George Clinton unharnessed Willy’s wings and let him fly. "Bootsy" was born in Clinton’s open format freak-fest within the P-Funk family and soon brought the gospel of “the one” to the dance floors of the era with unstoppable riffs like on
Mothership Connection. R&B, soul and, ultimately, funk music in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s truly ushered in the age of bass as it was used as a central structural element in arrangements for the first time. A funky bass line could send a crowd into a frenzy and no one was funkier and fresher than Bootsy, baby!
Robbie Shakespeare
Coming close on the heels of funk, reggae music also recognized the potential of the bass guitar and, in the heat of the Jamaican sun, slow cooked that smooth, deep resonance which would become a hallmark of psychedelic bass music for decades to come. That deep throb was more than just a backup for the other instruments. It drove the melody in a way that was completely new in music. Within that scene, Robbie Shakespeare became one of it’s most accomplished and prolific practitioners, playing on some of the greatest tracks to come from the island such as Bunny Wailer's
Blackheart Man.
Jean-Jacques Burnel
The Stranglers were initially swept up in the surge of “punk” bands in the UK in 1977. Though they were labelled as “punk”, they were actually a bit too old and accomplished as musicians to truly merit the label. Frankly, they outclassed the average punk band by a few miles and part of the reason for that was the distinctive snarling bass of “JJ”, Jean-Jacques Burnel. JJ had stumbled on his sound by accident while trying to work with a blown speaker cabinet. Listen to
Peaches and you can hear that stamp of authenticity in the roar that comes from his instrument. That raunchy buzz drove the band through their first three albums before he decided to tone it down a bit before it became too much of a limitation on his style. But even with a cleaner, more subtle approach, JJ’s playing retained it’s distinction and swagger.
Bill Laswell
The New York “No Wave” scene is where I first encountered Bill Laswell as part of the group, Material. It was their Temporary Music EPs which initially caught my ear, especially tracks like
Reduction. His frequent use of a strange filter effect, which gave his bass a kind of “talking” auto-wah sound, became a signature and point of reference when trying to identify him in any mix. Soon, I started to see Laswell’s name crop up over and over again in one production after another. Eventually, it was clear that this man had his hand in an endless number of pies in the alternative scene and this activity only grew exponentially throughout the 1990s and into the new millennium. Work with artists as diverse as Public Image Ltd and Yoko Ono and innumerable solo and side projects established a landscape of music driven by a love of atmosphere and low frequencies. It’s impossible to comprehend the full scope of Bill’s work over the years because he’s simply done too much to be able to fully capture it all. Stylistically, he’s traversed the realms of jazz, funk, dub, reggae, folk, techno, ambient, metal and nearly every other contemporary genre he could find his way into.
There are certainly other names I could and should check here, but I’ll let you, dear reader, come up with those on your own. I’m sure I’ve missed one or two of your personal favorites, but I had to draw the line somewhere and these were the names that came to my mind the most readily. Bass guitar has dominated my musical explorations now for almost half a century and it still has the seductive allure to get my heart beating, my head bobbing, my toe tapping and my soul soaring.
