Top Five rock Bass players


1 John Entwistle
2 Jack Bruce 
3 John Paul Jones
4 Geddy Lee
5 Paul McCartney
6 Glen Hughes
 
OK it's six but I saw Hughes with Trapeze and Deep Purple. And one magic night in Abilene Texas he played note for note with Tommy Bolin so I give him Honable mention. 

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Man have you guys got it wrong ;-).

1- Willie Dixon. He not only invented Rock 'n' Roll bass playing, he wrote many of it's early songs. Played with Chuck Berry, Howlin' Wolf, and Muddy Waters.

2- James Jamerson. Motown's bassist, and Paul McCartney's model for bass playing. How can you nominate Paul when he took his style from James?!

3- Jerry Scheff. The best bassist I have seen live, playing with T-Bone Burnett. He also played with both Elvis' (Presley and Costello), Dylan, Roy Orbison, Richard Thompson, and hundreds of others.

4- Joey Spampinato. When Bill Wyman left The Stones, Joey was Keith Richards' first choice as replacement. Joey turned him down (!), preferring to stay in the REAL Best Rock 'n' Roll Band in the world, NRBQ.

5- Carol Kaye. Played on recordings of The Beach Boys (think about all those great bass parts), The Doors, Frank Zappa, Ray Charles, Phil Spector, Simon & Garfunkle, and thousands (literally) of others.

Tony Levin
John Wetton
Mike Rutherford
Tina Weymouth

and without doubt, Chris Squire
bdp, FWIW Carol says Brian wrote out all those Beach Boy bass lines for her. She did come up with many other things including the classic line for " The Beat Goes On."


Some faves of mine already listed, esp. Sir Paul and the two Jacks.
I'm surprised no one has suggested Bill Black (early Elvis) or Les Claypool.  Tom Fowler (Zappa, It's A Beautiful Day, Ray Charles, Steve Hackett, Jean-Luc Ponty) also deserves mention.  Oh, and I love the way Rick Danko played.