I can’t argue with anybody’s top ten, but I’d like to add a name to the “unique in their field” list, Mark Sandman of Morphine.
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One of my favorite musicians. period.
Here’s to Mark Sandman and Morphine, and starting a career in your 40s!
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I’ll have to check that out! P.S., if you put your Youtube links on their own line in your post (rather than inside a paragraph), the forum will do a cool auto-embed thing, like this:
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Feeling a bit of a twat, but I got that now. Ta Josh!
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Haha no need for that. I need to make a forum intro video someday soon that explains all the cool little shortcuts the Discourse platform has.
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I‘m living in Europe and was raised listening to british music. Mostly post punk, new wave and rock from the late seventies. So my biggest influences came from Jean-Jacques Burnel (Stranglers) and Paul Simonon (Clash). Maybe they were not the best Players technique wise, but they were very courageus and innovative in their respective Genres. Also they had created bass lines that really influenced the whole style of their Bands and other bass players.
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The Clash’s basslines are so great. Iconic, melodic, and driving the songs. I spent a few years in the album London Calling, just loving all that bass work. Good call.
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I’d have to say Flea , Jaco , Sting , Bootsie Collins , Donald Duck Dunn , and Willie Dixon:) .
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Anyone that can actually play, is my favourite bass player.
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Yeah! Epic Album!
The Guns of Brixton has another of the most infectious/sampled/redone bass lines ever, I’d say on same group as Good Times!
Love how they did fusion Ska/Reggae groove with low tempo Punk, sooooo cool!
Love both the original and some based on it! specially Cypress Hill’s (What’s Your Number) or Beats International’s (Dub Be Good To Me) takes!
Trivia: Simonon was not able to play it on the bass while lead singing, so it was usually Strummer who played it live (swapped rythm guitar/bass on stage).
Love Rock the Casbah line too!
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do not remeber that, thanks for sharing. Yeah singing and playing this line in the same time must be extremely difficult.
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OMG, there are so many good bass players out there. Just to name a few (haha) more (in no particular order):
Etienne M’bappe, Lincoln Goines, James Genus, Matthew Garrison, Frans Vollink, Jeff Berlin, Kai Eckhardt, Helmut Hattler, Jimmy Haslip, Adam Nitti, Jimmy Johnson, Chris Squire, Mark Egan, Marc Johnson, Darryl Jones, Gary Willis, Patrick O’Hearn, Tony Levin, Eddie Gomez, Chris Minh Doky, John Patitucci, Damian Erskine, Dave Holland, Eberhard Weber, Anthony Jackson, Janek Gwizdala, Jonas Hellborg, Steve Swallow, Gary Peacock, John Wetton, Mark King, Dave King, Lars Danielsson, Charlie Haden, Nils Henning Ørsted Pedersen (NHOP), Richard Bona, Anton Davidyants, Stanley Clarke, Tony Grey, Victor Bailey, Wolfgang Schmid, Hadrien Feraud, Henrik Linder, Abe Laboriel, Evan Marien, … (and most of those mentioned above are still alive and kicking).
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I love this list… because I recognize so few of the names! Time to do some research…
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I‘d like to add Carol Kaye‘s name to that list. I had know clue about her until very recently, yet I knew so many of her very memorable bass lines. She can be heard on around 10.000 recordings by legendary producers such as Quincy Jones or Phil Spector.
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OH, wow, I had no idea! Thanks for sharing!
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I had no idea. Just last week a friend and I were wondering who played bass for the Beach Boys.
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If you’re into the stories behind the great bands that created all those killer songs - there are some great books/documentaries out there!
For more on Carol Kaye, check out The Wrecking Crew:
There’s also Stax, Standing in The Shadows of Motown, and Muscle Shoals.
The stories of all the musicians behind these jams is so lovely.
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So much to explore - so little time 
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Thx Gio, I watched The Wrecking Crew documentary today, super interesting!
I also discovered this lengthy interview with Carol Kaye on Youtube. It features a lot of playing on both bass and guitar and she tells so many exciting things e.g. how she used Samba and Latin rhythms to push the envelope on rock‘n‘roll:
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Yes, Carol Kaye! Still gotta watch that full Session Legend thing. The Wrecking Crew doc is killer cool.
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