Renaud Garcia-Fons – Bass Garcia-Fons has a reputation for incredibly sophisticated bow techniques that utilise specific sounds that are not often heard in double bass playing and his use of the 5-string means he has a higher range than most bass players. Despite this reputation, he does write some pretty tunes, folkish in tone rather…

John Gustafson – Bass John Frederick “Johnny” Gustafson (8 August 1942 – 12 September 2014) was an English bass guitar player and singer, who had a lengthy recording and live performance career. During his career, he was a member of the bands The Big Three, The Merseybeats, Quatermass, Roxy Music, The Pirates and Ian Gillan Band. Gustafson was another early convert to Wal basses…

Willie Weeks – Bass Weeks was born in Salemburg, North Carolina, and began playing the electric bass in the early 1960s. His earliest influences were the country, pop and R&B music he heard on the radio. Weeks counts bassists Ron Carter, James Jamerson, and Ray Brown as early influences. Weeks has worked in the studio or toured with a wide range of artists, including Gregg Allman, David Bowie, Jimmy Buffett, Kevin Chalfant, Eric Clapton, Hank Crawford, Bo…

John Perry – Bass The man who ‘invented/ the Wal bass (reportedly, Ian Waller, a friend of Perry’s, built the first Wal bass to his specifications). John G. Perry is an American-born British bass player and singer. He was born in the U.S. to British parents and moved back to the UK when he was young. In…

Rob Palmer – Bass Something a bit different today. I was playing through a transcription the other day (not one of mine) and recognised that I was not ‘hearing’ triplets naturally when the third of the three notes was not played within the line. So, in the spirit of 400 years of music tradition, I…

Phil Kuehn – Bass Philip Kuehn is an accomplished bassist, arranger, composer, audio producer, and educator whose career spans over two decades across the concert stage, recording studio, and classroom. He has performed with world-renowned artistsincluding Quincy Jones, Wynton Marsalis, Jon Batiste, Harry Connick Jr., Take 6, Branford Marsalis, Cyrille Aimée, Anthony Hamilton, Roy Hargrove,…

Geddy Lee – Bass I waver but I often think that ‘Permanent Waves’ is my favourite Rush album but I think this may be as much nostalgia as objective truth. I bought this piece of vinyl the day it come out in 1980 and still love every second of it. This track ‘Natural Science’ is…

Gary Willis – Bass With a career spanning more than 50 years, Gary Willis has released 5 solo CD’s, 10 as co-leader of Tribal Tech and has been a part of a multitude of other projects including playing alongside Wayne Shorter, Allan Holdsworth, Hubert Laws and many others. His own works include legends Dennis Chambers,…

Renaud Garcia-Fons – Bass Garcia Fons’s bas are the Jean Auray 5-string Master and Fly Auray models made by luthier Jean Auray. His bows are by Augagneur-Bergeron, Henry Guerra. Strings: C high Pirastro flat chromesteel / G D A Thomastik infeld Spirocore Solo / E Thomastik infeld Spirocore Weich. He favours Pop’s rosin and, amplification-wise, it’s a…

Pat Metheny? – Bass I always assumes it is one of the orchestral players on bass on this tune but the discography says that Metheny played all of the instruments. I am confident that is not actually literally true as there is an orchestra on there. Or is it sampled? I have no idea and…