Greatest rhythm sections

@dragunski , you are quite right. The same can be said about the guitarists role in Jump Blues bands, one of which I worked in during the mid-70’s. I love focusing on the guitarist in such bands, as they play lots of passing chords, often with beautiful clean tone on really great arch-top guitars---old single-pickup Gibsons are especially sweet.

In rock, guys like Clapton, Beck, Page, Hendrix, etc., unfortunately made being "only" a rhythm guitarist a humiliation. Few aspiring guitarists who came after them didn’t want to be perceived as anything less than a "lead" guitarist. If you look in musician hook-up sites, guys list their instrument played not as guitar, but as lead guitar. Unintentionally funny. A guitar is a guitar---there is no such thing as a rhythm guitar, or a lead guitar.

I’ve been listening to Bill Frisell a lot lately, and his song parts are absolutely fantastic. He plays little phrases that deepen and enrich the musicality of a song, but that don’t call attention to themselves apart from, and at the expense of, the song. THAT’S the kind of musicianship I listen for.

Two of my faves have already been mentioned---Al Jackson and Duck Dunn of The MG’s, and the two drummers of The Funk Brothers (the Motown house band) plus their best-in-the-world bass playing partner, the one-and-only James Jamerson.

To those I would add Roger Hawkins (drums) and David Hood (bass) of The Swampers, aka the house band at Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. It is with that rhythm section and in that studio that Jerry Wexler produced those astounding recordings of Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Solomon Burke, Dusty Springfield, and many others.

And then there is the best team to have ever been in a self-contained Rock ’n’ Roll Group (self-contained meaning the members did all the writing, singing, and playing), Levon Helm (drums, harmonica, guitar, mandolin, and of course vocals), Rick Danko (bass, tuba, guitar, vocals), and Richard Manuel (piano, drums, vocals) of the God-almighty-great The Band. They are infact considered THE Band by the best musician’s in Rock ’n’ Roll.

By the way, I saw several of others' nominees live---The Who, Cream, The Jimi Hendrix Experience (as they were originally named), Led Zeppelin, others of that ilk, and sorry, those bands were not good in terms of being a rhythm section. They had their strengths and charms, but having or being a good rhythm section was not one of them. Honest!