Great Blues Bassists?

[Shortie]

Charles Calmese (RIP) - very nasty, very original, deep in the pocket with some impressive chops. NOT your typical blues bass player: (Note the double stops)




Most of the players mentioned, including Calmese, are great, and so they can be tough to nail. A good guy to start with, who's not that great and not so tough to nail but plays nicely a lot of old school blues lines that you can hear is Jerome Arnold, who played with the Butterfield Blues Band in the early years. Before Butterfield, Arnold was playing bass for Howlin Wolf, so he went to the right school. Their first album is a good tutorial for learning many different good blues bass lines that aren't too difficult and have real old school feel. I learned blues bass fundamentals from that record back around 1969, and I still enjoy it today.

 

[Kukulkan61]

Al Kieth-Bobby Blue Band
Bernard Reid-Tyrone Davis

 

[MrLenny1]

Eric Czar with Joe Bonamassa.

 

[1stnamebassist]

Just in case some of you have never heard Ronnie Wood play bass, check out this old track ("Let Me Love You") from Jeff Beck's "Truth" album. (Rod Stewart on vocals.)

Ronnie Wood played great bass through that whole album. Rock my plimsol and I ain't superstitious come to mind for me. I believe it was Paul Samwell Smith with the Yardbirds is great listening also. And Mel Schacher with Grand Funk RR played some great blues based lines also keeping with the blues influenced rock theme.

 

[Tom Bomb]

Vito Portolesi

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[Shortie]

Bugsy Maugh with Paul Butterfiel

 

[Shortie]

even Duck Dunn

Even??

 

[Shortie]

And really key into Shannon.

Amazing musician.

 

[ONYX]

Even??

It's been my experience that many people associate Duck Dunn more with Southern/Memphis Soul and not so much as a "blues" player (Albert King not withstanding).

 

[bearhart74]

Oteil Burbridge.
Randy Jo Hobbs w/ Johnny Winter.
Anybody thats ever played with Robben Ford

 

[bucephylus]

Don't see the OP posting; so this just seems to have turned into people posting their fav Blues bassists.

There maybe should be a sticky for influential bassists for each genre. Blues, in particular, is so central to pop music, TB really should cover it. There are many great Blues bassists.

Two who have really impressed me and not been mentioned are Noel Neal and Greg Rzab. Groove Meisters!!!

 

[El Güero]

Two of my favorites are Jack Meyers and Jerry Jemmott, but they've already been mentioned, which is good.

 

[jerry]

I sometimes wonder in threads like this if the OP's are asking who is the favorite bassist or who are cats to listen to when auditioning for a blues band. I love Jack Bruce, but I wouldn't recommend playing like him while auditioning for a blues band, stick to Jack Meyers,

 

[Shortie]

It's been my experience that many people associate Duck Dunn more with Southern/Memphis Soul and not so much as a "blues" player (Albert King not withstanding).

OK, fair enough. He is mostly associated with Stax/Volt RnB sound.

I happen to listen to a lot of the Albert King Stax stuff, and Dunn is amazing on straight blues material - simple, classic lines, but so perfectly executed and timed that it makes him deceptively hard to nail. Dunn also was with the Blues Brothers, and Booker T and the MG's did a lot of material that was pretty straight blues.

 

[Shortie]

I sometimes wonder in threads like this if the OP's are asking who is the favorite bassist or who are cats to listen to when auditioning for a blues band.

Yeah - I mentioned something similar before, too. The OP wants to know how to get up to speed with blues bass - Tommy Shannon isn't such a good guy to start with...

 

[bearhart74]

Why Not TS?

Yeah - I mentioned something similar before, too. The OP wants to know how to get up to speed with blues bass - Tommy Shannon isn't such a good guy to start with...

 

[Shortie]

Why Not TS?

First learn the fundamentals. Tommy Shannon does all kinds of amazing things that are difficult to execute, and his ear is quite unorthodox. I wouldn't tell somebody to start blues guitar by trying to nail SRV either. Please follow the above exchanges....

 

[El Güero]

Check out Canned Heat's first album. Good stuff from Larry Taylor.

 

[SoCal1]

It's been my experience that many people associate Duck Dunn more with Southern/Memphis Soul and not so much as a "blues" player (Albert King not withstanding).

True as to the Stax style of music which I also consider to be "Southern Soul"...but if you listen to Ducks lines, they sure sound awfully straight blues oriented...

 

[5StringBlues]

Re: Duck Dunn and the blues.






Here ya go.