After focusing on my favourite drummers a few months back, this time it is all about the bass.
The bass player is often the hardest position to fill in a new band - it seems to have none of the glamour of drums and guitar, and yet without one, it is hard for a band to sound great. Yes, I know that you can get synth / programmed bass parts, but let's be honest, it's not the same as that earthy thrum and buzz you get from proper bass!
It is important to note some parameters here - okay, one parameter here:
This list is just about five bass players that I really love and who have impacted my musical enjoyment in some ways over the years. They are not the Top 5 greatest players of all time, although several of them have made various Top40 / Top100 lists.
I will give a brief shout out to some other great players who have stood out in my musical listening, but who didn't quite make the list.
Sting, despite the tantric sex, awful solo nonsense, is a great bass player. Everyone my age will remember being amazed at Mark King from Level 42 and his slap bass mastery. Sara Lee, who played with Gang Of Four and the B52s amongst others, was a standout. Dave Allen, also from Gang Of Four, is clearly a pioneer of the funk/punk bass playing genre - without him there would be no Flea and Red Hot Chili Peppers. And if we cast our minds back further, you must, of course, include Macca himself in the mix - not just one of the fabulous foursome and a generational songwriter, but a pretty nifty bass player too. Lastly, there is Carole Kaye, a true pioneer in the world of music. She had already played electric guitar on songs like La Bamba, when she switched to bass in 1963 and became part of the famous session band, The Wrecking Crew - playing with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder, Simon & Garfunkel, The Four Tops, The Supremes and The Monkees.
Tony Butler
Tony Butler, the London born son of Dominican immigrants, first came into my life in the 1980s. He was bass player in Big Country, which gives him several links to greatness in my book. Firstly, they are one of my favourite bands of all time, Stuart Adamson remains my all time musical hero, and lastly, his strength and presence meant that he formed a formidable rhythm section with Mark Brzezicki (who made my list of favourite drummers).
He started by practising on a papier-mache bass someone had given him, but when that got ruined, his mum went to the bank and got a loan, so that he could buy a Rickenbacker 4001s. He noted, "My mum was so supportive of my musical career, although when Big Country broke, she kept on asking me if I was going to get a real job!" We thank Mrs Butler for that gift, because between 1982 and Adamson's untimely death in 2000, Butler provided the thunderous heart of many great rock songs.
He would also work with The Pretenders, The Alarm, Roger Daltry and Pete Townsend, before rejoining Big Country for a while between 2008 and 2012. He has also taught in college and put out solo records. As with Big Country more generally, Tony's work was best appreciated live, as the below clips will readily demonstrate.
Big Country: Field Of Fire (Live at the Barrowlands, 1983)
Big Country: Harvest Home (Live in NYC, 1986)
Big Country: Angle Park (Live at the Barrowlands, 1983)
Tina Weymouth
Tina Weymouth is arguably one of the first prominent female musicians in rock. I'm sure someone will point out others, but it feels like up until the late 70s, there were very few females in music who weren't primarily known as being singers. Moe Tucker drummed for the Velvet Underground, but while they influenced many, they were never in the mainstream. The aforementioned Carole Kaye played on 10,000 top tracks, but was mostly known as a session player. Karen Carpenter played many instruments but will mostly be remembered as a singer and songwriter.
Weymouth was front and centre in a band that made waves and made the charts, and while much of the focus on them over the years has been on David Byrne, many will attest that without her musical input, Talking Heads would have been a much lesser band.
She was the daughter of a Vice Admiral in the US Navy, who found herself at the Rhode Island School of Design, where she met David Byrne and started dating drummer Chris Frantz. Byrne and Frantz had started a band and needed a bass player - she had been playing guitar, but decided to learn bass and fill that role. She received one half hour lesson and "everything else came from observing and listening in rehearsal and in the clubs."
Her husband Frantz, in his 2020 autobiography Remain In Love, picked out what makes Weymouth such a notable bassist. "Tina never plays the predictable thing. She invents every part anew - this was one reason Talking Heads sounded so unique." She would say herself that, "The spikier David played, the more I attempted to make my parts as sinuous and funky as possible. Our parts were equally about contrast as they were about blending."
No Treble also assessed her playing style. "Her style reflects distinctive and syncopated notes with a tone that cuts through the mix, providing boldness to the overall sound of Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club.... Weymouth embraces the nature of dance music, disco, reggae and early hip-hop by creating simple, yet undeniably catchy grooves."
Rolling Stone, in their 2020 Greatest Bass Players Of All Time, had Weymouth at number 29, noting that, "Without Tina Weymouth, Talking Heads would have been just another band." Also adding, "It's a grave injustice that Byrne has always gotten the lion's share of the credit for their accomplishments. Weymouth was a critical part of the songwriting team - even if she didn't always get credited - and she brought an effortless cool to everything they did."
So, all that great funky energy that Talking Heads at their peak brought to the party, is basically down to her!
Talking Heads: Psycho Killer (Live - Old Grey Whistle Test - iconic bass riff)
Tom Tom Club: Genius Of Love (Live, 1982)
Talking Heads: Crosseyed And Painless (From Stop Making Sense, 1983)
Mike Watt
Mike Watt is a player I have to come to much more recently. Although vaguely aware of the legacy of Minutemen, I hadn't really delved into the intense post-punk sound that trio created (except unintentionally from the theme to Jackass). It is a revelation. An American, lo-fi, funk-post-punk power trio answer to Cream?
With another nautical connection, Watt was the son of a Marine, born in Virginia but moving to San Pedro, California as a child. He met his best friend D. Boon and bonded over T-Rex and Blue Oyster Cult, and later Creedence Clearwater Revival. The Reactionaries were Boon and Watt, along with drummer George Hurley and singer Martin Tambourich - they dropped the latter and became Minutemen. They embraced the speed and power of punk, but with distinctive jazz and funk elements. Despite the lo-fi nature of their work, listen closely and you can tell that all three are proper players!
After Boon's sad early death in an auto accident, Watt was ready to walk away from music, but luckily was persuaded to persevere, and continues to make music in umpteen styles in umpteen different bands. He married Kira Roessler, the bass player from Black Flag and formed the least likely rock outfit - Dos - making music for two basses. Other notable moments include his post-Minutemen band, fIREHOSE, also including Hurley; and his big solo album, Ball-Hog Or Tugboat? which included a veritable who's who of alt-rock luminaries as guest musicians (members of Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Screaming Trees, Dinosaur Jr, Beastie Boys, Bikini Kill, Lemonheads, RHCP, Sonic Youth).
If you assume that great drummers prefer to work with great bass players, you start to get an idea of how good Watt is. First off, Hurley is one of the best drummers no-one knows - the power and precision he brought to Minutemen and fIREHOSE is ferocious. But Watt also worked with Dave Grohl on Ball-Hog and has also worked with legendary session drummer Jim Keltner.
CMJ New Music describe Watt as "a seminal post-punk bass player", while LA Weekly had him at number 6 in their 20 Best Bassists Of All Time. Bass Player magazine notes that "Watt has always been at his best when pushing his bass guitar to the forefront - much like one his early heroes, Jack Bruce of Cream." Flea says of him: "Mike's innovative, melodic and hardcore, all at the same time. He can also play the simplest thing in the world and imply that he can play anything. He's one of the greatest bass players ever."
Minutemen: Corona (Live, 1985 - volume is low on this recording - turn it up)
Minutemen: I Felt Like A Gringo (Live, 1985)
fIREHOSE: Choose Any Memory (Public access tv, 1987)
Mike Watt: Against The 70s (Live, 1995 - with Dave Grohl and Eddie Vedder)
Mike Mills
Mike Mills started learning piano at 14, and added bass to his repertoire aged 15. He met REM bandmate Bill Berry, when they were at high school in Macon, Georgia, and started playing in bands together. They made the decision to move to Athens, to attend the University of Georgia, where they would meet Michael Stipe and Peter Buck, and the rest is history.
He is especially noted for his very melodic approach to bass playing, inspired by Paul McCartney and Chris Squire of Yes. "I always played a melodic bass, like a piano bass in some ways.... I never wanted to play the traditional locked into the kick drum, root note bass work." (REM Fiction: An Alternative Biography).
He also noted the Yes connection to Music Radar, "I always enjoyed Chris Squire's playing. I wasn't a huge Yes fan but I liked the way he played it melodically, like a guitar, and kind of up front."
This melodic style of play, coupled with incredible way his backing vocals contrasted with Stipe, has always made him an interesting player to me. Just as Buck's arpeggiated guitar work is said to define it, without this combination of counterpoint bass and vocals, many of the songs on those early REM albums would be unimaginable.
R.E.M.: Cuyahoga (Live at Glastonbury, 1999(
R.E.M.: Gardening At Night (Live in Passaic, 1984)
R.E.M.: Fall On Me (Live - Tourfilm 89, the perfect blend of melodic bass and harmonious vocals)
Derek Forbes
I cannot begin to describe how Derek Forbes bass playing makes me feel, but I need to try otherwise this post is pointless. The effortless way in which he seemed to be playing, sinuous and fluid, sometimes spiky and funky, and at its peak like some kind of musical waterfall, still moves me to this day. Charlie Burchill's guitar and Mick McNeil's raft of keyboards merged together to create epic sounds, Jim Kerr darted and pounced, spreading mystery and intrigue - but on those first half dozen albums, it is always the bass lines that draw me in.
Forbes had been in a few bands already, when he joined Simple Minds in 1978, replacing Tony Donald. He would go on to provide those awesome riffs for the first seven albums, before leaving in a thunderstorm after the recording of Don't You. The Post Punk Monk notes that, "whatever he was doing in the song was of paramount importance."
Forbes told Guitar World, "My playing was a response t whoever said, 'bass should be felt and heard!' To me, bass should be like warfare!" XS Noize describes his contribution as being, "known for those iconic spine-rattling bass riffs." Graeme Thomson in Themes For Great Cities says, "It's impossible to overstate [Forbes input on] the sound, the sensibility, the shape of music they made in those first seven years."
Simple Minds: Premonition (Live in NYC, 1979)
Simple Minds: The American (Live in Newcastle, 1982)
Simple Minds: Waterfront (Live in Dortmund, 1984 - his most famous bass line of all)
I should probably finish with my favourite version of my favourite song from my favourite album of all time....