Great Rock Bassists your Top 10.Rock not Jazz. But Hey what about Reggae

In 1971 I was in a band with a real good bassist. His three favorite players were Rick Danko, Jack Casady, and Phil Lesh. He loved Jack's tone, so ordered himself the same bass jack was at that time playing: A Guild Starfire.

The bass arrived, he plugged it into his Sunn 200s (considered by many the best bass amp available at the time), and was very disappointed with the sound. He didn't yet know that all he had to do to get Jack's tone was change the strings on his Fender P-bass from flat wound to round wound ;-) .

I saw/heard Jack Bruce live twice, and his tone was, by far, the worst I’ve ever heard. And then there’s his playing; far too busy for my taste (my musician friends refer to his style of playing as "lead bass" ;-), but to each his own.

Now Jack Casady, that's a different story. He almost made it into my Top 10, and would definitely be in my Top 25.

Not a ranking, listed in alphabetical order:

- Rick Danko (The Hawks, The Band, Dylan). He and his musical brother drummer Levon Helm showed everyone how to build a great Rock 'n' Roll, uh Band. Their playing on the "brown" album is as good as it gets. Music From Big Pink is "pretty good" too ;-) .

- Willie Dixon (Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry. The man who sued Led Zeppelin for shamelessly stealing from him, and won).

- Duck Dunn (Booker T & The MG’s).

- John Entwistle. The sound he created when I saw The Who at The Carousel Ballroom in 1968 (performing the "A Quick One" suite) was the most massive bass tone I’ve ever heard!

- David Hood (The Swampers, the house band on all the incredible Muscle Shoals recordings). He and his drummer partner Roger Hawkins set the standard for all Rock ’n’ Roll rhythm sections.

- James Jamerson (The Funk Brothers, the Motown house band), the player who Paul McCartney says opened his eyes to the instrument’s possibilities. The master of the use of the musical technique known as inversion (listen to how he uses it in "What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted". It raises the hair on my head!). Perhaps a genius.

- Paul McCartney (especially on Rubber Soul onward).

- Jerry Scheff (T Bone Burnett, Elvis, L.A. studios). I heard him live (in The Roxy Theater, with Rodney Crowell), and was left speechless. A great, great musician.

- Leland Sklar (L.A. and Nashville Studios). Perhaps the most recorded bassist of all time.

- Joey Spampinato (NRBQ, Keith Richards). He makes his Danelectro/Silvertone electric (plugged into an Ampeg SVT) sound like an upright. Also a great songwriter.

Fun topic!