Best/Favorite Bass Player

Who are some ya'lls favorite bass players and who do you think is the best?

John Entwistle. Need I say more?

Ya who is he (like don't make fun of me for not knowing, because... that's not nice *mad*). I would have to say the bassist that died from Red Hot Chilli Peppers or Paul McCartney.

John Myung of Dream Theater is nr 1.

Billy Sheehan of Talas/David Lee Rooth/Mr. Big/Steve Vai/G3 is the second best.

David Lee Roth is a Bass player?

No No No, you see, Billy Sheehan played bas in David Lee Rooths band during the mid 80-s. Steve Vai was also in the band during that period.

All those names on the right of Billy Sheehan are the bands where he played. There are a few actually.

Ahhh, okay.

Mark King from Level 42. I don't particularly like Level 42 but this guy drops my jaw. He's supperfast at bobbling, slapping, tapping etc. A friend of mine had a copy of his album "influences" it's well worth getting hold of.

Stu Hamm, This guy is a fingerstyle player who does tons of slapping, bobbling and tapping. Some of the mega-fast percussive stuff he plays sounds like he has a whole drum kit at his disposal. This guy is unbelivably talented and plays lots of very clever syncopated two/three part music with tapping but for some reason he keeps getting booed by his audiences when he plays live with Satriani. I'm a mild man but it makes me want to straff the lot with machine gun fire even though that might sound out of place after the moonlight sonata on bass... !

John Myung, - try YTSE JAM (that's majesty backwards) from When dream and day unite by dream theater. Any bassist who can keep up with Pettrucci (who plays one of his best solos on that same track) is some form of God, I kept replaying it to make sure I wasn't dreaming. (o.k that bit was bull**** but it was well worth re-hearing!)

Billy Sheehan, - perhaps my favourite bass solo is on a rush tribute album called working man on Magna Carta records. He does an awesome and very melodic solo before Steve Morse made the mistake of rewriting Alex Lifeson's utterly perfect guitar solo "the Ghost of the Aragon" from "La villa strangiato". He also played some really amazing stuff on Glenn Tipton's solo album "Baptism of Fire".

Tony Franklin, - plays fretless bass. Guitar and Piano shredder Tony MaCalpine picked him as his bassist. This speaks volumes. He's tremendous.

Tony La Rue, - Percussive slapster, plays with steve Morse.

David La vin (I think that's his name, plays for the awesome King crimson), check out their album Discipline.

Geddy Lee - from Rush. Good shredder but mainly writer of some fantastic bass melodies, a real musician.

yo iiholly, the bassist from red hot chili peppers didnt die. his name is flea by the way. the original guitarist died though. his name was hillel slovak, who was alos a cool guitarist, then they picked up john frusciante, who rules, then dave navarro, from janes addiction, and then they brought back frusciante.

Okay so heres my short list.

flea - red hot chili peppers
john entwistle - the who
les claypool - primus

okay thats all i can think of on the spot. i dont know a lot of bassists.

jesse sutton (canada kicks ass)

Ya, I was wondering why flea was playing bass last time I paid much attention. But oh well I say stupid things all the time. Yes, I did figure out Flea was the bassist very recently like about yesterday. Can't know everything.

What does it matter, their new music sucks?

Everything matters.

Gotta be Geezer Butler or Dirk Lance, also Les Claypool, they are all good.

Yip, knew I missed someone obvious out, Les Claypool is amazing. So is Robert Trujillo (suicidal tendencies*, ozzy osbourne's live bassist etc) but I've heard him play some very low key stuff on the Jerry Cantrall tribute album.

* who would kick ass but for that dreadful singer mike muir.

well I don't know who is the best but noone mentioned Paul simon and the solo from you can call me al speakes for its self or wait I think it might have been diamond on the souls of her shoes either way it is The best bass solo I have ever heard and yes it is paul simon playing the bass

Bill Dickens buries Wooten (and just about everybody else) in technique; I'd still rather listen to Claypool.

By that same token, I'd rather listen to Juan Nelson than just about any other bassist alive or dead. Why? Exquisit phrasing.

And nobody's mentioned Jaco Pastorious. I'm ashamed.

The truth is this:
There is no best, only favorites.

Scarry? He sounds like a Helicopter when he's warming up.

To me, there comes a certain level of Good where it just becomes pointless to debate the issue, almost everybody mentioned here is well above that line.

I am a helicopter.

You seem to be a lot of things, by the sound of it anyways.