Skip to main content
MusicRadar MusicRadar The No.1 website for musicians
Sign in
  • View Profile
  • Sign out
  • Artist news
  • Recording Week 25
  • Music Gear Reviews
  • Synths
  • Guitars
  • Controllers
  • Drums
  • Keyboards & Pianos
  • Guitar Amps
  • Software & Apps
  • More
    • Recording
    • DJ Gear
    • Acoustic Guitars
    • Bass Guitars
    • Tech
    • Tutorials
    • Reviews
    • Buying Guides
    • About Us
More
  • As It Was preset
  • Don't Give Up
  • Ron Wood's drum secret
  • 95k+ free music samples
Don't miss these
Drummer sat at an e-kit places a pair of headphones over his head
Drummers Best headphones for drummers 2025: sound isolation for the studio, rehearsal room and stage
Earplugs being tested at a loud band rehearsal
Tech Best earplugs for musicians 2025: protect your hearing with these essential audio attenuators, for the practice room to your next gig
Bass
Music Production Tutorials 37 heavyweight bass production tips
Andy Fraser in 1971
Artists “The notes he didn’t play were more important than the notes he did play”: A salute from one great bassist to another
Danny Carey
Drummers 6 of the most inspirational drummers of all time
Pino Palladino and Miley Cyrus
Artists How Pino Palladino turned the demo bassline in Miley Cyrus’s End of the World into something "so much better"
Otoha holds a blue Fender Strat in a staged setting with neon pink and blue lights overhead.
Artists IDLES, Wet Leg and Sam Fender all graduated from the Fender Next programme – meet its Class of 2025
REDCAR JAZZ CLUB Photo of PENTANGLE and Danny THOMPSON, Double bass Danny Thompson performing on stage
Bass Guitars “His body of work is unparalleled in its quality”: Danny Thompson, acoustic bassist supreme, has died
JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE! "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" airs every weeknight at 11:35 p.m. ET and features a diverse lineup of guests that include celebrities, athletes, musical acts, comedians and human interest subjects, along with comedy bits and a house band. The guests for Monday, September 8 included Spinal Tap (Nigel Tufnel aka Christopher Guest, David St. Hubbins aka Michael McKean and Derek Smalls aka Harry Shearer) and Marty DiBergi (aka Rob Reiner) ("Spinal Tap II: The End Continues"), and musical guest Spinal Tap. (Disney/Randy Holmes) SPINAL TAP  (Photo by Randy Holmes/Disney via Getty Images)
Bands Five basses! Spinal Tap recruit Tal Wilkenfeld and Thundercat for bottom-heavy Jimmy Kimmel performance
10 people drummers will encounter at gigs
Drummers The 10 people drummers will inevitably encounter when playing a gig
John McLaughlin
Artists “I don’t have many guitar players’ albums on my iPhone, but Jeff is there”: John McLaughlin on the magic of Jeff Beck
Drummers Listen to 11 isolated drum tracks from rock's drumming legends
Miley Cyrus and Pino Palladino
Artists "We just didn’t want Pino to ever stop playing": Miley Cyrus honours legendary bassist Pino Palladino
Drummers When British rock drumming ruled the world
Laura Lee Ochoa
Bass Guitars Khruangbin bassist Laura Lee Ochoa says that her Fender signature model is actually based on a Fender copy
  1. Artists
  2. Guitarists

14 bass players who don’t get enough love

News
By Rob Power published 18 July 2017

Underrated bassists, from indie champs to unsung session heroes

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

Don't Miss

25 best basslines of all time

The titans of the bass kingdom are given all the love - your Maccas, your Jacos, your Jamersons - but there’s a whole world of talented bass players out there, beyond these oft-cited legends.

There are bassists by the dozen - some of them in huge bands, some of them prolific session guys - who have been doing the good work for too long in the shadows. It’s time we shone a light on these under-appreciated heroes, and gave them the props they so surely deserve.

And so here they are, 14 bass players who simply don’t get enough love...

Page 1 of 15
Page 1 of 15
Bob Babbitt

Bob Babbitt

Everybody knows James Jamerson, and rightly so. The man pioneered the Motown bass sound and was, without a doubt, a bone fide genius. But he wasn’t the only Motown bassist with chops.

Bob Babbitt, a Funk Brother from ’66 through to the early ’70s, had skills for miles and miles. Melodic and hard-driving, with a sound that lured a generation’s feet to a million dance floors, you can hear him on Signed, Sealed, Delivered, Tears Of A Clown, Band Of Gold and a ton more stone-cold classics.

Page 2 of 15
Page 2 of 15
Fred Thomas

Fred Thomas

If you’re not familiar with The Payback, James Brown’s epic 1973 double album, go and listen to it immediately. We’ll wait here. Done? Excellent. Now you know why we are in awe of Fred Thomas, bassist to the godfather of soul from ’71, and who played on some of his biggest and best albums.

Everything he does sounds so easy - until you try to replicate it. He never played a note out of place and was funky as all hell. Yes, Fred Thomas embodies everything a truly great bass player needs: simplicity, patience and a great big bucket of groove.

Page 3 of 15
Page 3 of 15
Paul Simonon

Paul Simonon

Considering he couldn’t play for toffee when he joined The Clash - to the extent he had to have frets labelled with notes - Paul Simonon went on to become the definitive punk bassist, in the definitive punk band.

Which is to say, while he started out snarling and battering his bass with the best of them, he ended up a versatile low-end mastermind, his playing full of shades of early rock and roll and roots reggae.

Guns Of Brixton is one of the all-time great basslines, and that’s just the tip of the Simo iceberg. Plus, he looked cooler than any other bass player before or since, and became an instant icon with the cover of London Calling.

Page 4 of 15
Page 4 of 15
Bill Black

Bill Black

Rock and roll would be in a sorry state if Elvis had never come along, and the arrival of the king was, in no small part, helped along by his bass player Bill Black.

The instantly recognisable bass sound from those early classic Elvis records - That’s Alright, Hound Dog, Heartbreak Hotel and more - was all Bill, a born performer with a comedic streak and an ear for a hell of a bassline.

He didn’t play for Elvis at all past the late-’50s, but by then he’d already helped change the face of rock and roll and helped usher in the electric bass as an early proponent of the Fender Precision.

Page 5 of 15
Page 5 of 15
Alex James

Alex James

Cigarette in mouth, bass slung low, busting out a groove as if it’s nothing - that’s Alex James, bassist in one of the best British bands of the past 30 years, and for our money, an overlooked four-string hero of the modern age.

Okay, so nowadays he’s more likely to be found making cheese on his farm, but in his heyday he was up there with the best of them. From the indie-pop perfection of Girls And Boys through to the heavier-than-hell fuzz-fest of Song 2, James provided the blueprint for the Lesser Spotted Indie bassist, a breed that is becoming increasingly rare these days.

Page 6 of 15
Page 6 of 15
Danny Thompson

Danny Thompson

It is a truth universally acknowledged that folk musicians are always bigger maniacs than rockers, and so it was with Danny Thompson and John Martyn, the terrible twosome of the ’70s folk scene.

Sublime on stage, Thompson’s expressive, jazzy double bass provided the perfect counterpoint to Martyn’s emotive, delay-driven acoustic mastery, creating a double act for the ages. Offstage, they fought like brothers, drank like devils, and wrote themselves into legend.

Thompson went on to play with the likes of Richard Thompson and is, for our money, one of the most criminally underrated bass players in British musical history.

Page 7 of 15
Page 7 of 15
Mike Dirnt

Mike Dirnt

Go ahead, write a catchy bassline. Easy? Well, no, not really, but you’ve probably got something. Now try and fit that into a two-and-a-half-minute pop song. Yeah. Not easy. Mike Dirnt, Green Day’s long-time bassmeister, has a knack for basslines that somehow soak into the brain, staying there - in some cases - for decades.

He can rock, he can slink, and he can hold a three-piece together better than almost anyone else in the game. You don’t get to play bass in one of the biggest bands on the planet without having a pretty serious A-game, and Dirnt can most definitely bring it.

Page 8 of 15
Page 8 of 15
Andy Rourke

Andy Rourke

The Smiths were the ultimate indie band, so it’s only fitting that they had the ultimate indie bassist. Andy Rourke’s playing is both sophisticated and subtle at the same time, and the perfect hand in glove to Johnny Marr’s elaborate guitar work.

You would think that a band featuring a singer fond of wearing cardigans and hearing aids wouldn’t have much of an impact on the dancefloor, but thanks to Rourke, The Smiths really, really do. A rolling, driving indie-pop genius.

Page 9 of 15
Page 9 of 15
John McVie

John McVie

There is a reason that Fleetwood Mac were named after their drummer and their bass player - rhythm sections don’t come any better than this.

Linked by a near-supernatural understanding of each other, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie emerged from the British blues boom of the ’60s as an untouchable team, raw and rocking yet tender and funky in all the right places.

McVie would write some of the all-time great bass lines in the ’70s, and his inimitable sense of song helped transform Fleetwood Mac into the pop-rock juggernaut of legend. A true titan of the game.

Page 10 of 15
Page 10 of 15
Phil Lynott

Phil Lynott

Almost anyone can bang out a few chords on the guitar and wail over the top, but singing bass players are an altogether rarer beast. That’s because it’s damn hard, frankly. And yet Phil Lynott, swashbuckling frontman extraordinaire, made it look easy.

Thin Lizzy remain one of the greatest rock bands to ever don leather trousers, and Lynott was the lynchpin. He looked great, he sounded even better, and he almost casually laid down some of the hardest-rocking bass lines ever committed to tape.

An all-riffing, all-rocking monster of a man, and the gold standard of bass-playing frontman. 

Page 11 of 15
Page 11 of 15
Marshall Grant

Marshall Grant

Never underestimate the power of simplicity. With his trusty upright bass in hand, former mechanic Marshall Grant revolutionised country music, and laid the template for early rock ’n’ roll bassists in the process.

Without Grant, Johnny Cash would have lacked a vital third of his distinctive sound, and the world would have been robbed of a wonder. Arguably one of the finest exponents of the ‘right note at the right time and nothing else’ school of bass playing.

Page 12 of 15
Page 12 of 15
Bruce Foxton

Bruce Foxton

Probably one of the most proficient musicians of the booming British scene of the late ’70s, Bruce Foxton had it all: chops to die for, stage presence to burn, and a tone that could topple buildings.

Taking his cues from Motown and the cream of ’60s pop, Foxton and his trusty Rickenbacker were the foundation upon which The Jam were built, and he deserves his place at the top table of bass players. The punk Paul McCartney.

Page 13 of 15
Page 13 of 15
Nick O’Malley

Nick O’Malley

The Arctic Monkeys have evolved over the years, from Sheffield back-room indie scrappers all the way to arena-packing LA-based lotharios, with a sound that’s part hip-hop, part classic rock, and all about the low-end.

Nick O’Malley keeps himself out of the way, letting Alex Turner do his thing up front, but it’s his rock-steady lines and room-shaking rumble that keeps things lean and funky. He only joined the band on album two, but he’s since proved an invaluable addition, from the creeping menace of Crying Lightning through to the late-night strut of Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?

Page 14 of 15
Page 14 of 15
Bob Moore

Bob Moore

Some session guys just can’t seem to stop working, and Nashville legend Bob Moore is probably the quintessential non-stop bass player.

Don't Miss

25 best basslines of all time

Kicking off his career when he was just a teenager, Moore went on to work with… well, everyone. Icons like Elvis, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, Willie Nelson, Jerry Lee Lewis - Moore’s credits are a who’s who of rock and roll royalty.

He played on literally thousands of records, and is arguably one of the most recorded musicians of all time. Impressive.

Page 15 of 15
Page 15 of 15
Categories
Guitars
Rob Power
Read more
Bass
37 heavyweight bass production tips
 
 
Andy Fraser in 1971
“The notes he didn’t play were more important than the notes he did play”: A salute from one great bassist to another
 
 
Danny Carey
6 of the most inspirational drummers of all time
 
 
Pino Palladino and Miley Cyrus
How Pino Palladino turned the demo bassline in Miley Cyrus’s End of the World into something "so much better"
 
 
Otoha holds a blue Fender Strat in a staged setting with neon pink and blue lights overhead.
IDLES, Wet Leg and Sam Fender all graduated from the Fender Next programme – meet its Class of 2025
 
 
REDCAR JAZZ CLUB Photo of PENTANGLE and Danny THOMPSON, Double bass Danny Thompson performing on stage
“His body of work is unparalleled in its quality”: Danny Thompson, acoustic bassist supreme, has died
 
 
Latest in Guitarists
Wolfgang Van Halen
“My list of voice memos is in the thousands!”: Wolfgang Van Halen on his songwriting process for his new Mammoth album
 
 
2013 Inductees Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee of Rush perform onstage at the 32nd Annual Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame
“I realised how hard it was to play these songs”: Alex Lifeson makes a surprise admission
 
 
Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood of The Rolling Stones accept the award for Album Of The Year: Public Vote for their album 'Blue & Lonesome'
“He tried it when he came in and he said ‘I can’t do it as good as you, Ronnie. You get back on the drums.’”: When Charlie Watts ceded the drums to Ronnie Wood on a Stones track
 
 
Epiphone Joe Bonamassa 1959 Les Paul Custom: a the dual-pickup Custom was a lesser-spotted model in the Gibson catalogue in the '50s – they didn't make many of them. But Bonamassa presents us with one and this 'Black Beauty' is equipped with a Bigsby.
Epiphone raids Joe Bonamassa’s Nerdville archive for another reproduction of a vintage unicorn
 
 
Korn's Brian 'Head' Welch and James 'Munky' Shaffer show off their new Ibanez signature 7-strings
Korn’s Head and Munky unveil new Ibanez 7-strings – and explain how it all comes back to Steve Vai
 
 
Ritchie Blackmore with Rainbow
“I think every serious fan of hard rock music would love Stargazer”: How Ritchie Blackmore created his magnum opus
 
 
Latest in News
Positive Grid Spark LINK XLR
Time to go wireless? Positive Grid’s Spark LINK XLR offers cable-free connections for live performance
 
 
Justice
"It saves us 900 hours digging through crates”: Justice on why they gave up sampling
 
 
spectrasonics
Spectrasonics announces Omnisphere 3, the "ultimate virtual instrument" that's been ten years in the making
 
 
A family photo of the newly refreshed Gretsch Streamliner and Electromatic Jet singlecut electric guitars, in various classic and bold finishes.
Gretsch relaunches the Jet in Streamliner and Electromatic series – and there is a single-pickup rock 'n' roll machine FTW
 
 
Charvel Limited Edition Sean Long Signature Pro-Mod San Dimas Style 1 HH HT M: the While She Sleeps guitarists artist model is now officially available in Neon Pink by popular demand.
By popular demand, Sean Long of While She Sleeps’ Charvel signature model now comes in Neon Pink
 
 
Kate Bush black and white
Over fifty artists to take part in Kate Bush-backed fundraising project for War Child
 
 

MusicRadar is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.

  • About Us
  • Contact Future's experts
  • Terms and conditions
  • Privacy policy
  • Cookies policy
  • Advertise with us
  • Accessibility Statement
  • Careers

© Future Publishing Limited Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA. All rights reserved. England and Wales company registration number 2008885.

Please login or signup to comment

Please wait...