By Rolling Stone, July 1, 2020
This was written by a bunch of folks at Rolling Stone. I agree with Jamerson in the top 10, but under their own criteria, I think they got it wrong – what do you think?
It’s emphatically not intended as a ranking of objective skill; nor does it assign any one set of criteria as a measure of greatness. Instead it’s an inventory of the bassists who have had the most direct and visible impact on creating, to borrow Kaye’s term, the very foundation of popular music — from rock to funk to country to R&B to disco to hip-hop, and beyond — during the past half-century or so.
Rolling Stone…
- James Jamerson
- Charles Mingus
- John Entwistle
- Bootsy Collins
- Carol Kaye
- Jack Bruce
- Larry Graham
- Jaco Pastorius
- Paul McCartney
- Ron Carter
- Phil Lesh
- Willie Dixon
- Stanley Clarke
- John Paul Jones
- Donald “Duck” Dunn
- Charlie Haden
- Robbie Shakespeare
- Chris Squire
- Verdine White
- Rick Danko
- Geezer Butler
- Flea
- Bill Wyman
- Geddy Lee
- Cliff Burton
- Israel Cachao López
- David Hood
- Aston “Family Man” Barrett
- Tina Weymouth
- Bob Moore
- Bernard Edwards
- Sting
- Lemmy
- Richard Davis
- Louis Johnson
- Les Claypool
- John McVie
- Pino Palladino
- Kim Gordon
- Bill Black
- George Porter Jr.
- Tony Levin
- Mike Watt
- Joseph Makwela
- Esperanza Spalding
- Peter Hook
- Leland Sklar
- Kim Deal
- Duff McKagan
- Thundercat
