What's so special about John Entwistle?

[Lowendtech]

a more recent clip from 2020

Extremely unlikely this is.

 

[MtManiac]

Perhaps Mr. Townshend can explain it:

I like Entwhistle, but Townshend sounds like a tool here to be honest. "Unattractive" playing bass with your fingers?? tf?? But onesies and bad haircuts are cool?

 

[NoiseNinja]

And a more recent clip from 2020 where he takes a bass solo (not the best sound quality, but a pretty neat solo):


Not really a The Who fan either, but got to give credit where credit is due, and John Entwistle had serious chops and a fairly unique playing style, sort of slapping the strings with the tip of his fingers.

Extremely unlikely this is.

Doh!

I meant 2000 of course.

 

[Lowendtech]

Townshend sounds like a tool here to be honest.

Accurate, as he is.

 

[NoiseNinja]

My honest opinion about Pete Townshend would have me banned, so I'll refrain from that.

 

[Lowendtech]

My honest opinion about Pete Townshend would have me banned, so I'll refrain from that.

I really liked his guitar playing style while I was growing up (however Entwistle was my inspiration) but Pete is full of twaddle.

 

[bobyoung53]

I always thought this was a funny thing Pete Townsend said about Entwistle:
goto 1m55s

I saw Entwistle at the Call in Providence in 1999, I had seen him the night before at Sir Morgan's Cove in Worcester.

 

[bobyoung53]

I have more of a problem with Bill Wyman's place in the pantheon, and I've seen bassists on this forum defend him fiercely. I remain unconvinced. These things are annoyingly subjective. I love The Who and I love John's playing. Makes me unobjective.

If you listen to Townshend's demos maybe you'd hear what John normally brings to the table via it's absence. Not that his contributions are all that subtle in the first place...

Bill is a great rock and roll and blues bassist, this is live from 1964. I stole lots of his riffs when I was a kid first learning but he is the complete opposite of someone like Entwistle, he played the bottom and played it well, locked in with Charlie Watts.

 

[bobyoung53]

Part of the problem with Wyman is that, Keef played far more of the bass parts than most people know and as far as I am concerned, Keef is a better bass player.

Keith played probably ten or twelve tunes out of their whole catalogue, Keith is good though and actually Ron wood is the best out of the bunch on bass. Don't underestimate Bill's playing though. He probably played bass the most of Exile on Main Street which was about 3 songs, a few before and a few earlier. Bill played the vast majority of Stone's tunes.

 

[bobyoung53]

JE pioneered that bright, Rotosound tone, hounding James Howe's company so he could get a tone on bass that resembled an electric guitar, but lower. Previously in the early 60's, a lot of bass sounded like thumpy organ pedals.

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My friends at Alembic ( see that video at the start of this thread, that Explorer-shaped Alembic Exploiter became one of his trademarks) explained for his basses, they'd get the neck dead straight, and lower the action to where you'd be hard-pressed to get a piece of cigarette paper between the strings and the frets. Unplayable for anyone there, yet John could pick it up and fly on them. He once requested a 34" scale Flying V-shaped bass. Of course it wound up being almost five feet long, but it worked for him.

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And he had to ply his trade between Keith Moon, Townshend, and Roger Daltrey. Playing with Moon alone would have been a monumental task for anyone.

And this may provide a little insight:

I saw him play from about ten feet away for a whole night once in a small club, he had a very light touch, I was actually surprised, when he did his triplets it was almost like a butterfly's wings touching the strings.

 

[bobyoung53]

Daltrey claims everyone (except for him) in the band was taking drugs in the early 60s. Virtually everyone in that band had a serious vice or serious issues with their upbringing - and drugs helped them deal with it. Daltrey claimed he never took drugs because he was afraid it would affect his libido...lol!

I have no reason to believe that Entwistle didn't begin using drugs as soon as he could obtain them.

Cocaine was not real common until the late 60's, early 70's. They were pill heads, speed, same with The Beatles, a lot of 60's musicians used speed to keep going, even Johnny Cash, Don Everly etc. That and booze.

 

[bobyoung53]

The guy from the Kinks had the first Ric in England.

From Chris Squire:

I think the first three Rickenbacker basses were imported around 1964. Pete Quaife, the bassist for The Kinks, bought one. Then John Entwistle from The Who bought one. As for the third one, I asked the manager of the store if I could get an employee discount. He said I could, and so I picked up that one. McCartney also had a real early one that the Rickenbacker owners brought over for them and gave Paul his 4001 which he still has to this day and is supposed to still use on recordings at times.

 

[bobyoung53]

I saw a biography on him and I believe he was a guitarist first. And his noodling on guitar was transcribed to bass and that's how his sound was considered original. Of course he wasn't the first to do what he does, but he was the first to become famous for it.

He was a trumpet player, then a french horn player, he tried guitar but his fingers were too big and he liked the low sounds of Duane Eddy so he bought a bass. He was never really a guitarist.

 

[pbass2]

Entwistle, Squire, Macca, JPJ, Casady, Bruce, and a few others in that 60's-70's zone - these were the players that took the bass guitar to a whole different place - not just, "really great bass playing" but, at the time, unconventional playing, leading to where we are today. You may not like all the music, but its important to know your history.

 

[pbass2]

That and I love his choice of notes. He's busy but he's a superb conversationalist musically speaking.

+1. He tells the story of the song--what we should all aspire to do.

 

[bobyoung53]

He was not finished. Moon is an easier target; he once passed out during a 1970s show in San Francisco, forcing the band to pull a drummer out of the crowd. "With Keith, my job was keeping time, because he didn't do that," says Townshend. "So when he passed away, it was like, 'Oh, I don't have to keep time anymore.'" The Who by Fire, Stephen Rodrick, Rolling Stone Mag. Nov. 25, 2019

I love Keith Moon and love his playing so I'm not bashing him at all but here's the video:

Keith Moon Passes Out at the Cow Palace November 20, 1973 and is Replaced by Scott Halpin.

 

[bobyoung53]

I just read this whole thread and I will say that younger players may not get what an innovator and bass star he was in his day and how he was most likely a primary influence on a lot of later bass stars., but if anyone wants to know how to "get" Entwistle, listen to this album, there's some great clean bass lines on it and he wrote it all and sang lead.

• John Entwistle — lead vocals; bass guitar; keyboards; synthesizers; bass synthesizer; trumpet; piano; French horn
• Peter Frampton — electric guitar
• John Weider — backing vocals; violin (10)
• Rod Coombes — drums
• Gordon Barton — drums
• Jimmy McCulloch — electric guitar
• Neil Sheppard — electric piano; organ
• Bryan Williams — trombone; keyboards
• Alan Ross — acoustic guitar

 

[Cloven Hoof]

Here is one example of why he was a big deal

 

[UglyBuzzard]

The Ox was not of this earth - those that heard, seen, or conversed with understand. There are a few bass gods and then there is John!

 

[Wibble666]

I couldn't get past the fact that this thread was started on April 1 ...