Thanks Stu (I'm smiling in real life right now)

Haha 'that' Stu Miller used to be my parents' agent in Hollywood! (My parents used to be screenwriters)

You should be able to do private messages by going under 'User Control Panel' which is in the top right hand corner after you log in (though I'm sure you already know that). If it isn't working I'd hit up Lew! (Ummmm...or I could do it for you since you can't PM?)

Anyway, as far as the list goes...

I really don't see anything that needs to be changed until we hit Johnson/Abe in the low teens (which means, unless anyone has any questions or suggestions about that part of the list, discussion is moving from top 15 to 15-20 spots right now, and I don't intend to revisit discussion on top 15 until we finish the rest of the list barring anything coming up)

Louis...
Good indirect influence, good innovation, no idea on creativity but supposedly his stuff with Brothers Johnson is amazing (what do you guys think?), some versatility (pop sessions to funk to...), solid tech skill. PROBLEM is he actually LOSES points for the list when we bring intangibles into account...he's a virtual no-name, his sessions discog is far inferior to the top session guys, and his influence is 100% indirect and its amount is questionable. He claims to have invented slap and pop before Graham, only that he was recorded doing it later; given he was recorded later, I don't think it really matters that he supposedly did it first. He hasn't been noteworthy in decades as far as I know. He DID help develop the Stingray though didn't he? (I think he did), which counts for something. But again, the fact that his claimed role in developing and popularizing and moving forward slap/pop by all accounts greatly exceeds his ACTUAL role in all that, I feel hesitant awarding him like 1000 influence points and stuff. My take? Needs to drop to the 30s (hardly a bad place to be!), since he definitely helped popularize slap and probably did help expand it too stylistically

Abe, epic player (one of my favorites, I saw him live recently), but how much is he is rock vs in jazz? I need to look into his discog closely...

What are general thoughts on Dennis Dunaway from the Alice Cooper group? Love his sound, and I always loved those licks in School's Out.

I'm not too familiar with Dunaway, but Alice has used some real good bassists through the years including Tony Levin, John Prakash, and Bob Babbitt.

Well fuck me, listening to "Divine Wings of Tragedy" (Symphony X) on Pandora and Thomas Miller is just epic here. Still not top 100 epic I think, but pretty epic

Whoa Alice used Bob? When? Cheers

Ok, doing research on Abe.

MAN what a career. Absolutely unimpeachable, impeccable credits in both rock and jazz. LA NARAS award 3 years in a row (!). Over 4000 recordings and soundtracks (!). Movie work as well as album work. Donald Fagen, Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Billy Cobham, Ray Charles, Madonna, Paul Simon, Quincy Jones, Andy Summers, Johnny Hallyday, Herbie Hancock, Michael Jackson album credits. Word. (And that's just within rock...yea I know Billy Cobham isn't really rock, but close enough)

Honorary doctorate from Berklee. "Guitar Player Magazine described him as 'the most widely used session bassist of our time'." (wiki) "He was in fact voted by his peers in the LA Chapter of NARAS as the 'Most Valuable Player' in the Bass chair for the three years in a row, joining Ray Brown and Chuck Domanico in that honor." (http://www.angelfire.com/music/worldpop ... round.html) (Is that last one true Stu?)

Absolutely insane creativity, significant innovation on bass (flamenco inspired style), very high tech skill. He's basically unimpeachable. Embodies 'passion' more than any other famous/prominent bassist ever, insanely charismatic and involved live performer, true musician. One of the best at improvised solos I've ever seen.

BUT...

His jazz credits really shouldn't influence his placement here, and I don't know if his innovative style was ever really given a chance to be shown in rock session work. (Could be totally wrong on that one)

On THIS list, my gut says he should be in a good 30s spot. What do y'all think?

Good to see Prestia move up. When my uncle was playing with Tower of Power, he said Prestia gave him some bass lessons, apparently the guy is a wonderful guy to be around and really good teacher, which I assume he would be.

You can't assume that. Often the best players make poor teachers, partly because they don't know how to teach and partly because they are so good they forgot how it was to be starting out, how to teach the basics.

That's often true. Remember, Ted Williams made for a horrible baseball coach. In Roccos case though, he participates in a lot of bass clinics amd bass boot camps. Jaco on the other hand...An aquaintence of ours was a close friend of Jacos way back when and to help him out financially, he set up a seminar in Florida for Jaco who got messed up and didn't show up.

Yes...Babbitt recorded and performed with Alice Cooper in the mid-late 70's. Did at least two album projects.

Abe Laboriel is quite renowned. Should remain inside the top 30 IMO

Mmm I'm thinking I'll put Abe in the Nathan East spot, #31. Actually, yeah, gonna do that right now...

OK, lowered Louis & Abe to better placeholder spots in the late 20s/early 30s. These will not necessarily be their final placements, but are much closer to where I think they deserve to be on the list. Any comments? If there are no objections we'll evaluate their final positions later, when we get to the late 20s/early 30s spots in working on the list.

(Cf. my last couple of posts for why I lowered Louis & Abe)

So..other stuff. This means Hamm and Duck, and LaRue are now top 20. Something about that smells wrong to me. Duck seems like a good top 20 candidate...Hamm a decent one maybe...but LaRue?

I'll start by asking: Stu/Ssoyd, is it correct that Duck was a BIG session guy in the 60s, who helped define the sound of pop/rock bass? Say, between a Babbitt and a Jamerson in influence, perhaps on a par with an Osborn or close? That's my impression right now.

As for Hamm...

Good creativity, absurd tech skill, good-ish versatility, not that much/somewhat questionable innovation, somewhat limited influence.

Criteria breakdowns (Hamm):

Hamm v Sheehan (!):
Tech skill: Tie/barely Sheehan
Creativity: Sheehan
Versatility: Hamm (eh)
Innovation: Sheehan
Influence: Sheehan

Sheehan wins this pretty concretely.

Hamm v Duck:

Influence: Dunn
Innovation: ? (not sure how to grade this one, I'll say Dunn)
Creativity: ? (I need to listen to more MGs, lol...I'll say Hamm)
Versatility: Hamm
Tech skill: lol HAMM

When you take intangibles into play though, I'm tempted to say Duck comes up on top. First though, I want confirmation that my intuition about Dunn being one of the big movers in rock bass in the 60s (I mean, he WAS the bottom end for Southern soul, right???) is correct

True that Duck Dunn was the bottom end behind all of those "southern soul" hits from the Stax label out of Memphis. Technically he wasn't up the the level of Babbitt, and innovatively and creatively he certainly wasn't in a class with Jamerson..but his relatively simple basslines worked well with the less sophisticated style of that specific situation. His reputation certainly was enhanced with his participation in all that Blues Brothers stuff, but he lacks somewhat in versatility. Now David Hood out of the Fame studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama was a terrific bad ass bassist in southern soul, and skillwise, likely surpasses Dunn. Tommy Cogbill is another guitarist/bassist out of the south who possesses great skills, but Dunn did influence a lot of players. Duck is no Joe Osborn skillwise, versatility, or creativity...but because he was more well known as a big fish in a small pond, he may surpass Joe in influence, since a lot of people who were influenced by Osborns basslines didn't know it was him.

You a Stax fan Stu?

It's funny, Steve Cropper has this quote about Dunn being super creative, but I'm not sure I totally see it either

Was Dunn 'THE' 60s southern soul guy? Or were the other two you mentioned, Cogbill & Hood also doing that around the same time? Hmm

Also, I don't think someone should necessarily lose influence points just because the people they influenced didn't know their name..remember no one knew Jamerson's name in the 60s!!!

EDIT: As you'll see in my next post, added Cogbill to 'probably needs to be raised on the list' and David Hood to 'might need to be added to the list', for now.

So, where do we stand??? (UPDATED!):

People who might need to be lowered (to varying degrees), OR dropped off the list:
- Oteil Burbridge
- David Hungate
- Nathan Watts
- Nathan East
- Stuart Hamm
- Dave LaRue
- Will Lee
- Freddie Washington
- Bobby Sheehan
- Rex Brown
- the Symphony X dudes
- Leo Lyons
- the Eagles guy
- Ron Wood
- Billy Gould
- Marshall Lytle
- Billy Cox
- Phil Lynott
- Trey Gunn (is he a bass player? lol)
- Willie Dixon
- Bill Black

People who probably will in fact be DROPPED OFF the list:
- Bill Black
- Willie Dixon
- Billy Cox
- Ron Wood
- Symphony X dudes

People who might need to be RAISED on the list:
- Pino Palladino
- Tim Bogert
- Tommy Cogbill

Possible ADDITIONS to the list:
- Brian Wilson (The Beach Boys/bass composer)
- Herbie Flowers (session man)
- Fernando Saunders (session man)
- Tony Newton (session man)
- David Hood (session man)
- James Jamerson III (session man)
- Simon Gallup (The Cure)
- Mark Sandman (Morphine)
- Colin Greenwood (Radiohead)
- Mark Hoppus (Blink 182) (eww)
- Andy Rourke (Smiths)
- Mike Dirnt (Green Day)
- Randy Coven (Steve Vai, solo)
- Jason Newsted (Metallica, Flotsam and Jetsam, Voivod)
- Chris Wolstenholme (Muse)
- Peter Hook (Joy Division, New Order)
- Paul Simonon (The Clash)
- Audie Pitre (Acid Bath)
- Martin Turner (Wishbone Ash)
- Tina Weymouth (Talking Heads)
- Jeroen Paul Thesseling (Obscura)
- Tony Choy (Atheist)
- Sean Malone (Cynic)
- Ray Shulman (Gentle Giant)
- Sting (The Police, solo)
- Roger Waters (Pink Floyd, solo)
- Stuart Zender (Jamiroquai)
- P-Nut (311)
- Jean-Yves 'Blacky' Theriault (Voivod)
- JJ Burnel (Stranglers)
- John Taylor (Duran Duran)
- Nick Beggs (Kajagoogoo)
- Lemmy Kilmister (Motorhead)
- Frank Bello (Anthrax)
- Pete Trewavas (Marillion)
- Dee Murray (Elton John)
- Alex Webster (Cannibal Corpse)
- Ben Chambers (Tea Leaf Green)
- Pete McCullough (Streetlight Manifesto)

Probable/nearly-certain-to-be-added list candidates:
- Steve DiGiorgio (Death, session man)
- Roger Patterson (Atheist)
- Peter Cetera (Chicago)

Are they 'rock' enough to stay on the list, or not?:
- Marcus Miller

Who else should move down from the 'possibles' to the 'probables' among list candidates? The three I listed have been unanimously agreed on by y'all before. Who else?

Also...there are currently SIX open spots on the list. Counting all the 'they'll probably be let go' people added, that makes a total of TWELVE open spots on the list. I think everyone agreed that DiGiorgio, Patterson and Cetera should be added. What other 9 dudes should also make the cut? Who else should be dropped among the 'possible drops' people?

Memphis soul was outstanding with it's somewhat simplistic more blusey style as opposed to the more sophisticated sounds coming out of Motown and later Philly International and The Sound Of L.A. (SOLAR)...but Stax produced some great artists (Otis Redding has always been a favorite of mine). As for Duck Dunn...his playing was much less technical than Cogbill or Hood...but Dunns reputation was certainly enhanced with the whole Blues Brothers thing, and his relatively simple parts fit the Memphis style quite well. As for Croppers comments relating to Duck...remember that they were childhood friends and Steve persuaded Donald Dunn to learn the bass so they could play together. Muscle Shoals and The Fame Recording Studio became a mecca for soul artists from up north looking for a more deep soul sound, and it lasted until many black artists conflicted by the "black awareness" movement stopped using white rhythm sections for mostly political reasons. Guys like Hood and Cogbill moved on to places like Nashville and other places where they could find work.

You took the words right out of my mouth Stu (except for David Hood who I am unfamiliar with) but I don't think that the fact that nobody knew Osborn's name should count against him influence wise. Nobody knew Jamerson's name either.