You can't play bass.... underrated bass players

Bork · July 2023

ICBM said:

Adam Clayton. He’s not only essential to U2 and his bass parts are the perfect example of playing for the song, he’s actively put down by bass snobs. He has great timing, feel and tone.

John Taylor used to be as well, but is now more recognised as the brilliant bassist he is. Bernard Edwards rated him highly, what more do you need?

Nick Beggs too, but I think a bit more recognised as good. Fun fact - I used to own his MXR chorus pedal, quite likely used on Too Shy . A friend has it now…

Adam Clayton's parts in the earlier U2 stuff like New Years Day are absolutely the glue that holds everything else together. They're almost keyboard like in that sense. I dunno if he wrote the lines or whether The Edge told him what to play but it works, no question.

I dunno about John Taylor. He had a massive confidence crisis while recording Notorious which Bernard coached him through but his bass parts have been parodied since because he uses pretty much the same lines on a number of songs.

Nick Beggs is a self possessed man. Unquestionably talented and totally in His Zone doing His Thing. But largely over looked because of precisely that. Over the years he seems to have deployed an American career development strategy in a culture which finds such strident non conformity a little threatening. Therefore, he's probably in the wrong country but I absolutely enjoyed watching him on Bands Reunited with the reforming of Kajagoogoo.

Bork · July 2023

Gonna throw my hat in the ring here:

Herbie Flowers.

Living UK bass legend - upright, tuba and electric. Can read bass clef like the back of his hand. Never ending source of hilarious anecdotes once you push past the Lou Reed thing. Has been on so many classic british albums and played with pretty much everyone of note in the seventies and eighties. Should be far more wealthier than he actually is. Also helped set up BIMM.

Shoot me down.

Also honourable mention to the recently deceased Mo Foster - was touring with Phil Collins before Phil took the leap overseas. Was also with Jeff Beck and countless others in the mid 70's and early 80's. Also played fretless bass on the Bergerac theme. Such a lovely lovely gentleman in real life as well.

Bork · July 2023

jdgm said:

Ron Wood on the 1st 2 Jeff Beck LPs.

And on Maggie May.

axisus · July 2023

Possibly not that well known around here, but a recent addition to my fave bassists is Jon Poole. I'm a big fan of the prog band Lifesigns and his playing for them is superb. One of the things I like about prog - very prominent bass playing.

If anyone can be bothered, you can hear his great bass playing right from the start of this demo of their last album.

Offset · July 2023

Mick Karn. Loved his fretless sound.

Jimmy Dewar. Great bassist as well as having a stellar voice.

RIP both :-(

* EDIT - Duck Dunn. RIP all three.

Vintage65 · July 2023

munckee said:

Kim Deal for me. She freely admits to being a very basic level bass player so she consciously didn’t over play and the result were seriously cool bass lines which drove the pixies sound.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2ox22j