This seven-minute album or four-minute single song takes everything that was best about The Doors — acid-drenched psychedelia, a threatening blues edge and that era-defining drone — and anchors it all with a rock-solid bassline. Geddy Lee is the man when it comes to the bass guitar, as we all know, and when his band Rush hit what was arguably their creative peak in the late-'70s and early-'80s, they simply could not be stopped. Geddy alternated between a J-Bass and his trusty Rickenbacker on the Signals album, and his mastery of the instrument is at its finest during these unparalleled six minutes. Bassist Melvin Dunlap probably never thought that two decades after he laid down the unforgettably hooky bassline for the original Express Yourself, the line would become the mainstay of a gangsta-rap anthem. Genius, in either incarnation. Well, think again: the song comes complete with a sweet, descending line that adds a funky fill each time it goes down a step and then adds a dexterous turnaround on the way back up. Taking an old Robert Johnson blues song, Cross Road Blues, buffing it up and retitling it simply Crossroads, Cream created a legendary entry in the British avant-garde blues canon. Applying his famous deftness of touch and melodic awareness to the blues chords, Bruce showed us all that bass could dominate a composition without being over the top.


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Best Bass Guitar Riffs
Rob Carr. He says it with pride. He wears it like a badge of honor. And then proceeds to slap a ton of bass throughout the movie. In reality, the bass may be the most underappreciated instrument in music history, even though it was essential to some of the biggest songs from The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Nirvana, Queen and others. The bass id the centerpiece of funk and, thus, a go-to for hip hop heads during the development of that genre. We honor the instrument with our ranking of the greatest bass lines of all time by acts that have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Some of them come from session players, but any song by an Inductee was eligible. So get ready to slap, fret and pluck your way to number one. Graphics image via Getty Images.
40. The Doors - Riders On The Storm
Individuals interested in pursuing a career as a bassist should be aware of these musical geniuses and know not only how to play these riffs, but also some background on how they were created by the artist. Knowing some of the more complicated bass lines and the circumstances under which they were written can. So, let's talk about some of the best bass guitar riffs that ever existed. Every emerging bassist should be able to play these famous bass tracks. Therefore, in no particular order,. This song, based on the book by Ernest Hemingway of the same name, is another song played by Cliff Burton on Bass. He uses a "light distortion" on his bass during the intro which gives it that unique sound. Chris Wolstenholme's genius bass line on this track has been voted as one of the best bass riffs of all time on countless lists. Dusty Hill, ZZ Top's bass player, only had to play two cords, but the simplicity of the song was what made it so magical. They wrote the song in , which was a year before they released their first album.
But first, what do we mean by the greatest bassline ever? Can there be such a thing? What this list tells us is that there is no one style that dominates the polls. We have metal in there, bass deployed in compositions that are far removed from the jazz-fusion as practised by Jaco Pastorius, who, no big surprise, made the cut. How can we appraise a James Jamerson bassline on the same axis as Cliff Burton? The master of jazz fusion bass guitar, Jaco Pastorius, in his natural environment, running rings around an old Pee Wee Ellis jam on the Bass of Doom, his home-hacked fretless his tool for jimmying open the door to all-new possibilities for the world of bass guitar. Maybe this should have been higher in the list, folks? But it makes a great starting point, a walking, strutting work of jazz funk that's cerebral when you write the notes on sheet, yet spiritual when you hear it performed. Pastorius in laid-back jam mode is bass guitar as spectacle. It looks so easy, but