Top Five rock Bass players

Man have you guys got it wrong ;-).

1- Willie Dixon. He not only invented Rock 'n' Roll bass playing, he wrote many of it's early songs. Played with Chuck Berry, Howlin' Wolf, and Muddy Waters.

2- James Jamerson. Motown's bassist, and Paul McCartney's model for bass playing. How can you nominate Paul when he took his style from James?!

3- Jerry Scheff. The best bassist I have seen live, playing with T-Bone Burnett. He also played with both Elvis' (Presley and Costello), Dylan, Roy Orbison, Richard Thompson, and hundreds of others.

4- Joey Spampinato. When Bill Wyman left The Stones, Joey was Keith Richards' first choice as replacement. Joey turned him down (!), preferring to stay in the REAL Best Rock 'n' Roll Band in the world, NRBQ.

5- Carol Kaye. Played on recordings of The Beach Boys (think about all those great bass parts), The Doors, Frank Zappa, Ray Charles, Phil Spector, Simon & Garfunkle, and thousands (literally) of others.

Yup tostado, Brian wrote the notes on paper, but bringing them to life is also part of a bassists job, which Carol did excellently. Plus, I have no doubt she made a few suggestions Brian approved.

Rick Danko was sixth on my list! His playing on a fretless Ampeg and fretted P-Bass was just fantastic. I forgot to mention that Spampinato makes his Danalectro electric sound like a stand-up. Incredible! He has been undergoing treatment for Cancer since late last year.

Topic: Top Five Rock Bass Players

Operative word Rock. Now, what is Rock can be argued. But to say Jaco and Miroslav "are jazz bassists that surely substantially better schooled and skilled than Paul McCartney", while true, is off point, isn’t it? When it comes to technical virtuosity, Jazz musicians are universally more advanced than Rock musicians. But what makes a player "better" at Rock music is different than what makes a player great at Jazz music.

It’s hard to make non-musicians understand the significance of style in the approach to playing an instrument. Keith Moon was asked if he could play in The Buddy Rich Band. His reply was "No, and Buddy Rich couldn’t play in The Who".

Would Jaco or Miroslav playing bass in The Beatles rather than Paul have made The Beatles music "better"? Chances are very likely no. In fact, it would most assuredly have made it less good. I often hear "simple" music ruined by an "ambitious" musician "over-playing". That’s how Jazz musicians play Rock music. They don’t understand the role their instrument plays (unintended pun :-) in Rock music versus Jazz.