Who is your favourite BLUES Bass Player?

Willie Dixon

Jack Myers-Buddy Guy and Junior Wells

Tommy Shannon-SRV & Double Trouble

 

It's so hard to name just one. Lately I really like the stuff I hear Michael Rhodes playing with Joe Bonamassa:

 

Have you seen his bio? He's so accomplished and so good. Always in the pocket and never too flashy. I really liked Carmine Rojas when he played for Joe B also.

 

Keith Ferguson, original bassist with The Fabulous Thunderbirds.

Johnny B. Gayden, most known for working with Albert Collins.

Billy Rich, on Paul Butterfield's Better Days.

Richard Cousins, long-time bassist with Robert Cray.

 

Willie Dixon, Tommy Shannon, Dusty Hill.

But my biggest influence was Keith Ferguson. His work w/ The Fabulous Thunderbirds alone is a blues bass tour de force.

 

I've had the Better Days album since it was new, great bass player, the whole band was unbelievable.

 

Willie Dixon wrote the book on blues bass, I would have to say that Duck Dunn is my favorite electric blues bassist. Calvin Fuzz Jones was good, Charles Calmese was another one i liked, played with Cotton during the early 70's.

 

Do they have be blues only?
Nathan East is a good as it gets when he’s playing blues.

 

You mean Calvin "Fuzzy Samuels?

 

Willie Dixon, in spite of being an upright player, is, as the Brits say, the Guv’nor(for all electric players that followed). However, Jack Myers seems to be the first substantial electric blues bass player, historically. I admired Johnny B. Gayden(with Albert Collins)for injecting some modernity into the bedrock time honored moves, but before that, Jerry Jemmott, known more as an R&B/soul player, did the same thing on BB King’s “Completely Well” album, featuring The Thrill Is Gone. That left an impression on me, but also in that time period was the work of Electric Flag/Super Session bassist Harvey Brooks, and Canned Heat’s Larry Taylor, which I got a lot out of. Jerome Arnold of the earlier Paul Butterfield Blues Band, as well.

 

This was another of my favorites that came to mind but didn't know how to classify him since he plays so many other styles more than blues. But anything he touches is killer.

 

Willie Weeks is another big time blues bassist.

 

Tommy Shannon.

 

Pretty hard to consider anyone but Willie Dixon at the number one spot. He was so intensely influential and creative.

When it comes to electric bassists, there aren't a whole bunch who I love in the "strictly blues" genre. Most of my top electric players played in the more broad category of "R&B" (which basically just means music whose target audience was the African-American community: soul, funk, black pop, blues, some disco, electronic, dance, rap, hip hop, etc.).

 

Tommy Shannon.

 

Willie Dixon

 

I saw Greg Rzab play with Buddy Guy decades ago... killer show... Rzab was everything you could want in that type of scenario. Bravo!

 

Since Clapton is considered blues, how about Jack Bruce or later on before Clapton quit touring, Nathan East?

 

Mars Cowling