Who influenced you to play or continue to keep playing bass?

I started in this world playing double bass, but after watching One minute silence play when i was 14 - i was bowled over to buy a bass guitar!

The bassist for OMS seemed not just play the bass but also show his passion for the music in the way he moved around the stage.

I loved it!

Then recently i saw Josh ritter and band play at a local venue - the bassist was PHENOMENAL and he just blowed my mind -

ZACHARIAH HICKMAN

He is just the best bassist i have ever seen play in my life - he owned the fretboard that night and showed me that Folk/indie music can also be laced with sweet riffs and structures.

He inspired me to take a long hard way at how i play Bass and im really excited on my future in playing bass now.

So who/what did it for you?

Who influenced you to play or continue to keep playing bass?


Jack Casady and Phil Lesh

Stanley Clarke - the School Days album specifically inspired/frustrated me....

Jack cassady was pretty good like!

who is stanley clarke?

was he any good - what band was he in?

who is stanley clarke?

was he any good - what band was he in?

Stanley Clarke (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Clarke).

A major name both in electric bass and double bass worlds, definitely.

Jack cassady was pretty good like!

He still is.

Les Claypool

Victor Wooten

Bootsy.

I've been listening to and playing a lot of Grateful Dead. Phil's an amazing player. As with all the members in the band, Phil uses voicings and phrases that are all about feeling as well as supporting the song. It has nothing to do with "Look how fast and complicated I can play."

Jack Casady and Phil Lesh

I've been listening to and playing a lot of Grateful Dead. Phil's an amazing player. As with all the members in the band, Phil uses voicings and phrases that are all about feeling as well as supporting the song. It has nothing to do with "Look how fast and complicated I can play."


i totally agree with its not about how complicated and fast - i think its all about the groove and the feel to the song the bassist adds!

well said young man - i will check out the grateful dead asap!

james jamerson...was listening to him berfore i knew what a bass was and i didnt realize it until i grabbed a stevie wonder greatest hits that i knew that sound. researched and found out his name and have been obessed since...is there a jamersonbass line anonimous meeting i can attend... :)

To continue playing it is the members of my band. There is no group of people i'd rather share the stage with. We are all best friends.

Especially the guitarist and I. We both decided to start playing at the same time and have been together for over 10 years now. His passion for creating and playing music fuels mine.

Just the guys that I play music with really.

They've always been the biggest influence on me.

Started playing bass out of necessity when I was in my early teens. I switched off from guitar with our bass player on a few songs he couldn't play. A short while later, I was offered a different gig on bass, as bass players were in very short supply in my age bracket back then. So definitly my bandmates were my primary influence. They still are.

I guess I'm supposed to say Jaco, Wooten, Entwistle, blah blah blah, but that's really not the case for me. Never was.

I love the friends I have played with. They inspire me to keep playing.

So far, the bassists that have had the greatest impact on me are:

NHOP
JPJ
the bassist for Dave Barnes (still don't know his name)
Rocco

Charlie Mingus. Lately I've been listening to Epitaph, and theres this song called Peggy's Blue Skylight that is absolutely mind blowing, the best jazz song I've ever heard to say the least. Mingus showed me yet again that there are things in music that can be pushed to such a level they become mindblowing.

The late, great Dee Murray with the Elton John Band during the 70s/80s. I am the proud owner of one of his basses, purchased from his widow.

Carlos Dengler

Tommy Shannon inspired me to pick up the bass, Jamerson, and George Porter Jr. are the reasons that I play to this day.

Grant

Victor Wooten keeps on inspiring me. I used to be inspired by other bassists but soon found their techniques very boring and easily surpass-able, but Victor always comes up with new stuff to impress me!

At a summer jazz camp I went to right after my freshman year of high school Steve Bailey came in and did a solo bass performance and clinic, and played a concert that night with the UNCW jazz faculty. That got me hooked.

Tim Commerford, Eric Avery, Flea and Pete Steele

Not Jeff Berlin!

Phil Lesh, Les Claypool, and Victor Wooten keep me droolin' over their chops and wanting to improve my own.

Bootsy in his James brown years blow me away even before i know exactly what a electric bass was.

Jack Bruce and Larry Taylor...opposite ends of the spectrum but both are incredibly good at what they do.

Everytime I hear a great bassline, or a groovy song.

What can I say? It was 1986, and I was 18 years old:

http://rush.netfirms.com/img/geddy2.jpg

Stefan Lessard of Dave Matthews Band. Possibly the most tasteful busy bassist ever.

this is fab im discovering some quality music - the grateful dead - incredible!

come on guys and gals and bassists keep going on this!

this is fab im discovering some quality music - the grateful dead - incredible!

come on guys and gals and bassists keep going on this!

You're just now discovering them? Too bad you're more than 12 years too late to have seen them live. There is, was, and will never be anything else like a Dead show. I listened to their recorded stuff for many years and was mildly interested, but in 1981 I went to my first show and it was... Well, words fail me, but when get to this point when I am telling the story aloud, I whack myself upside the head and go "Ohhhhhh. Yeah!"

Everytime I hear a great bassline, or a groovy song.

Amen to that.

but in 1981 I went to my first show and it was... Well, words fail me, but when get to this point when I am telling the story aloud, I whack myself upside the head and go "Ohhhhhh. Yeah!"

Well ofcourse

but the drugs helped too, no?


I dont see how anybody can listen to Phil Lesh's parts on American Beauty and not just fall in love. One of the best albums of all time. Anybody who says the dead couldnt pull it off in the studio is an idiot

GEDDY LEE

PAUL McCARTNEY

JAMES JAMERSON

Still Abraham Laboriel, Sr. Just like the last time I replied to a thread asking this question. :D

Ric Fierabracci's solo on the PBS broadcast of "Yanni Live at the Acropolis." It was 1993 and I was 15 years old and had never seen anyone play like that before! A textbook example of going WAY beyond the root!!!

Watch it here and dig the positively unreal solo that begins at approximately 2:43...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC6to2-EDrg

Lonnybass

There is a number of these threads going right now and this is the wrong forum.