OFF: Great Bassists (was100 Greatest Guitarists)

[Nick Medford]

On Sun, 7 Sep 2003 16:41:14 -0400, DRider <Farflung at COMCAST.NET> wrote:

>the whole idea was to generate discussion

Well, sure. That's exactly what I and others were doing- discussing it.

>
>Paul McCartney not a great bassist?
>
>OK, whatever

Well we will have to agree to differ on that. I love the Beatles, they are
one of my favourite bands. They changed the face of music forever, and left
behind an extraordinary body of work ranging from perfect pop to audacious
avant-garde experiments. I love them. They were great songwriters,
lyricists, arrangers, you name it. But they were most certainly not
virtuoso musicians.

>
>how many bands w/ a great guitarist have made it w/ only a mediocre bass
>player??
>
>I can only think of one off the top of my head - Van Halen

I wouldn't know, I've never had any interest in them.

>
>and they have not been doin too well for quite a while......
>
>say what you want about Pete Way, but he did a fine job w/ Michael Schenker
>a guitarist that certainly is better than Eddie Van Halen
>
>Pete Way - not great - OK
>but he can play bass better than Michael Anthony in his sleep
>
>So my list sucks because I did not put Jaco Pastorious on it?

Where did I say that? I merely expressed surprise that, after a number of
posts on great bassists, no-one had mentioned him.

>
>it would not lead to much discussion if I put everyone on it
>would it?

I don't really understand this defensiveness- you post something to
generate discussion, people are interested, they discuss it... er...
everyone's happy right?

Anyway I thought of two more who'd be on my list- Holger Czukay and Bill
Laswell.

Nick