I’m opening this discussion about Dougie Thomson, the phenomenal bassist of Supertramp, who is, unfortunately, far too underrated in my opinion. He was actually the first bassist whose lines I really started listening to and through whom I discovered the role of a bassist. I’ve always found him to be incredibly effective and absolutely discreet.
It was thanks to this band, with themes of mental and societal alienation explored in songs like The Logical Song and Asylum, that I grew up as a teenager. And it was thanks to Dougie Thomson that I became interested in the bass.
I’ll remember this moment for the rest of my life: I was in a piano class, trying to play nursery rhymes (the big pink book, with the bee flying from flower to flower—you know that book), and in the room next to me, a friend from my boarding school and the same class as me was playing It’s Raining Again on the bass. I thought to myself, *What am I doing here? Why isn’t that me instead?*In short, I’ve always admired the tone he uses, and I’ve only just started wondering about the basses he chose to play: Fender Jazz Bass, Stingray, G&L, Yamaha…
The bassist who replaced him in Supertramp also deserves a topic of his own. Cliff Hugo (Ray Charles, The Beach Boys) exclusively uses Stingray 5- or 6-string basses, I believe.
Anyway, let’s share our thougths (should we have some ^^)