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Melodic bass players.
- Thread starter 25oclock
- Start date
+1 to the OP's mention of Colin Moulding with XTC. Talk about subhooks!
A very busy line, but I sure I dig the contrapuntal feel of it.
A very busy line, but I sure I dig the contrapuntal feel of it.
Nate Mendel in the Sunny Day Real Estate days wrote amazing lines.
Robert DeLeo would be my pick! Amazing that he also WROTE Plush, Interstate Love Song, and lots of their other awesome songs.
It's funny because I saw in an interview that he had to simplify his bass lines to better fit the Foo Fighters. I loved his playing, especially on the LP2 album.
Dude, I've been six feet under since hearing that track many years ago. +11111111
I was thinking about the same interview when I wrote that. He said something along the lines of "with SDRE I tried to fit in as many notes as possible, but with FF I stay in the pocket."
There are lots of reggae bass players that are very melodic. In some ways it is what defines the genre. Family Man is a great example but there are other greats. Some of my favorites include Leroy Sibbles, who is most widely known as a singer in The Heptones, and Robbie Shakespeare.
Peter Hook is probably the most 'melodic' one I can think of.
Plenty of busy players, but having hummable bass melodies is a different story.
Plenty of busy players, but having hummable bass melodies is a different story.
Yes! You got it right!
I read the title of this thread and was gonna cast my vote for Leroy 'Heptone' Sibbles( still do ), and was almost positive that nobody would mention him, and BAM...there he is. How he sings and plays reggae bass is beyond me. I did a show once and was able to play bass while singing "Party Time", but I think it was one of the hardest things I've ever done while playing Bass.
2 melodies at once takes lotsa practice, but he makes it look fun and easy.
Robbie is my fave tho. He plays melodies with Body Blows.
A+ brother.
You beat me to it!!
I've been critically listening a lot to old Grateful Dead/Further/Phil and Friends recordings over the past year and Phil's lines are very melodic!! I jokingly call him their 'Lead Bassist'.
With all the emphasis around here on "thump", I feel as if I've been waiting to pounce on this question for ages. Two of the all-time greats, at least with respect to counterpoint and counter-melody, are:
* Paul McCartney
* Chris Squire (RIP)
I always felt that Chris Squire in particular had internalized some elements of J.S. Bach, judging by the kinds of bass parts he wrote during the Yes golden period. If anyone here should doubt my judgement, I challenge you to obtain hi-fidelity copies of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Close To The Edge, stretch out on a comfy sofa or bed in a darkened room with a pair of good headphones, close your eyes, and listen to the respective bass parts as carefully and closely as you can. You will emerge from that darkened room a believer.
Since we're on the topic of melodicism, as far as any rock or pop music is concerned, I've long had a deep affinity for the British bassists over practically any of their American counterparts: Graham Maby, Bruce Thomas, Colin Moulding...and going back half a generation or so, Bruce, Entwistle, and of course Squire and McCartney, etc.
MM
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