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

In no particular order:

Louis Johnson (my personal favorite) 

James Jamerson 

Victor Wooten, Jaco Pastorius, Flea, (I despise their music but their skill is undeniable)  

Stanley Clarke will get the Celine Dion treatment here - the music is simply too awful to warrant praise for the artist’s technical proficiency 

Bootsy Collins

Larry Graham

Francis Rocco Prestia

Bernard Edwards

Thundercat

@stuartk I’m rejecting any iteration of Stanley Clarke I’ve ever heard.  If you have any suggestions, I’m all ears.

I find that particular type of dentist’s-office-waiting-room smooth-jazz Muzak unendurable.  It makes my soul hurt.

I mentioned him by the self-evident merits of his technical proficiency.

When addressing this thread, I tried to think of great non-classical, non-jazz bassists.  I have a bass-playing friend who is extremely into the Jaco/Manhattan Transfer/Wooten/Clarke stuff.  I perused those artists’ catalogs online again when trying to make my list, and I seemed to find Stanley’s output somehow slightly more unpalatable than people like Jaco, Wooten, and Flea.  It’s difficult to reconcile an artists’ technical virtuosity with the disagreeableness of their music.  
I’m not sure how I would go about the same type of list for guitarists, given that the likes of Van Halen, Vai, Satriani, Malmsteen and their ilk are clearly of a demonstrably higher level of technical proficiency/virtuosity than just about everybody else, but also make terrible music.

I suppose when we say “best,” perhaps a qualification is necessary to define the terms.  “Sheer technical proficiency,” or “makes you happy when listening,” or some combination of both.

@stuartk The way described those kinds of guitar players is exactly the way I feel about them. 

@sidog1460 Have you ever checked out Louis Johnson on these songs:

”Strawberry Letter 23,” “Stomp!” - Brothers Johnson

”Get On the Floor” - Michael Jackson

”The Dude” - Quincy Jones

Just ridiculously great stuff.

I personally don’t view popular music with such strict adherence to labels.  Why would Flea be more “rock” than Larry Graham?  What does it matter?  
Notions of labeling and applying music to a “genre” helps marketing executives make more money, they don’t help anyone else.  Such notions don’t help artists effectively communicate their ideas, and they don’t really help music fans assemble and disseminate great music for themselves or their friends.

Pretty much all popular music of the last 60-odd years is a result of the Rock and Roll Explosion of the mid-to-late 1950s.  Sure, traditional bluegrass, for instance, continued into the Rock and Roll Era, but even that is arguably a building block of rock and roll, and rock and roll is essentially the universe we’ve been living in, popular-music-wise, for the 60-odd years.

“Popular Music” and “Rock and Roll” are essentially synonymous to me.  Reggae, hip-hop, metal, etc.  Verse-chorus-repeat, middle section (solo or bridge or interlude) and that’s about it. It’s all the same s***, just different flavors.

@sidog1460 

Sorry, when Louis didn’t crop up in your initial comment on my picks, I wondered if that name may have escaped you, clearly it didn’t.

I am not familiar with Mark Adams or Slave.  Thanks for the top.  I’ll have to check it out.