Following up on Ten Top Guitarists That Can Sing!
I wanted to include Ten Top Bassists That Can Sing!
I truly believe that most instrumentalists would love to sing but have relegated that idea to those “born” with talent.
Truth is, anyone can sing.
No, really.
If you can sing Happy Birthday, you can learn to sing!
Yes, it is true there are some that are “born” with stronger skills than others. This is true in almost any discipline.
But you can definitely use what you have and grow it like crazy.
Just like I did.
I hope you find this video inspirational and informative.
Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy – Where The PROOF Is In The Singing!
Here are some fun facts about these Bassists. đ
Geddy Lee
Lee’s name, Geddy, was derived from his mother’s heavily accented pronunciation of his given first name, Gary (His mother and father survived the ghettos of Poland during WWII and later Auschwitz and Dachau when they were only 13 years old). This was picked up by his friends in school, leading Lee to adopt it as his stage name and later his legal name.
Jack Bruce
Jack attended 14 different schools; his final being the Royal Scottish Academy of Music. He left the Academy at 16, because of poverty and discouragement by his professors’ lack of interest in his ideas.
His first real band,âthe seminal Graham Bond Organization, included organist Graham Bond, guitarist John McLaughlin and drummer Ginger Baker. Jack was compelled to leave this band after three years by Ginger Baker, who said his playing was “too busy”! However, it was Ginger Baker who initially asked Jack to form a trio with Eric Clapton ( insisted that Jack would be the singer)
Sting
Sting earned his famous name from performing in jazz clubs while wearing a black and yellow sweater that made him look like a huge bee.
Back in 1977 the band agreed to appear in a Wrigley’s commercial directed by Ridley Scott. The brand demanded that all the band members dye their hair blond to play a nondescript punk band. The look eventually became The Police’s trademark even though the commercial never aired.
Benjamin Orr
His first band was called âBenny 11 Lettersâ because his real last name, Orzechowski, Is 11 letters
Phil Lynott
The âBoysâ from the boys are back in town were a ragamuffin bunch of criminals based in Manchester called the Quality Street Gang. Members of the gang frequented the bar which Lynottâs mother ran.
“Whiskey in the Jar,” was originally set to be nothing more than a B-side, it was the record labelâs idea to make it a single. The Lizzy guys were completely against the idea, feeling that the traditional Irish folk song wasnât representative of their true sound as a band
Mark King
Originally starting out as a drummer, he did not intend to take up the role of playing bass, but merely did it by way of necessity. He had lost his drum kit on an ill-fated trip to Austria, having to sell it to pay for a ticket back home. Since Level 42 already had a drummer lined up, King played bass.
Lemmy Kilmister
He spent 8 months working as a roadie for the group and Hendrixâs personal acid dealer.
When asked if he had learned anything from Hendrix, Lemmy aptly responded, âYeah, I learned to give up guitar and play bass instead.â
He made more money from the songwriting royalties of âMama Iâm Coming Homeâ than he had in his entire time with Motorhead.
In one interview he even admitted he was open to the possibility of auctioning the warts off to anyone who wanted them.
Paul McCartney
Paul played to what’s believed to be the largest paid audience in recorded history. In 1989, Paul played a solo concert to a crowd of 350,000-plus in Brazil.
On September 11, 2001, Paul was on an airplane in New York City. He looked out the window and saw one of the planes crash into the Twin Towers
Jack Blades
While attending College of the Desert in Palm Desert he met and jammed with Pat Rizzo (who was then the sax player for Sly and the Family Stone) who introduced him to Jerry Martini (the original Sax player for Sly). In 1979, they formed the funk band Rubicon with fellow future Night Ranger member Brad Gillis on guitar and drummer Kelly Keagy. When they disbanded, he roomed with Alan âFitzâ Fitzgerald, bass player for Montrose and Gamma and keyboard player for Sammy Hagar. He suggested they form a band. Fitz knew another guitar player in Sacramento (Jeff Watson) called Ranger. Prior to the release of their first album, it was discovered that there was a country band by the name of The Rangers. Jack had written the song âNight Rangerâ for the album so the band changed their name to Night Ranger to avoid any potential problems.
He has written or co-written songs for Aerosmith, Cher, Ozzy Osbourne, Alice Cooper, Roger Daltrey, and other artists.
Gene Simmons
You could probably tell better stories about Gene but…
Despite the rock ânâ roll culture of the â70s and â80s, Gene Simmons has never done drugs, smoked cigarettes or drank alcohol.
As a certified teacher he taught elementary school for several years. Imagine having him?
Gene speaks 5 languages fluently: Hungarian, Hebrew, High German, Japanese and, of course, Englishâ
Gene Simmons is a former member of the Mickey Mouse Club
Roger Waters
With lyrics written entirely by Waters, “The Dark Side of the Moon” spent 736 straight weeks on the Billboard 200 chart, becoming the world’s second bestselling album and the 21st-bestselling album in the United States.
âThe Wall,” was actually conceived as a rock opera during Pink Floyd’s “In the Flesh Tour,” in the year 1977, when he became so frustrated with the audience that he spat on them.
Glenn Hughes
Glenn was replaced by vocalist Ray Gillen after six shows with Black Sabbath due to Black sabbathâs production manager punching Glenn in the cheek which broke a piece of cheekbone, perforating his nose and causing large amounts of blood to dry in his throat. It took him almost a year to recover from the incident.
Tom Araya
Another band which formed in 1982 from San Antonio, TX, also called themselves Slayer. The San Antonio Slayer actually made their record before the now famous Slayer band, but it didn’t immediately get released. Six months later, Slayer from California put out their album, beating the San Antonio band out. The band from Los Angeles sent the San Antonio group a cease-and-desist with threats of suing the band over the name change. The San Antonio band changed their name to S.A. Slayer. Oddly enough, the two bands went on to play together that same year, which was later referred to as the infamous Slayer vs. Slayer gig.
Dusty Hill
In 2017, Hill was the highest-paid musician in the world, pulling in an astonishing of $46 million between November 2017 and November 2018, a nearly $20 million lead over his closest competition.
35 Years Ago: ZZ Top’s Dusty Hill Shoots Himself in the Stomach
Hill acquired his bullet wound on Dec. 16, 1984, in an embarrassing mishap that started when his girlfriend went to pull off his boot and his derringer dropped out, discharging in the fall and hitting him in the abdomen.
Kip Winger
Winger studied with Michael Kurek and composed a thirty-minute symphonic piece, “Ghosts”, written for strings, piano and harp for a ballet commission.
Winger was nominated for an Isadora Duncan Award for Excellence in Music.[8] The ballet was a hit and was brought back for a second season in 2010.
Winger then composed a four-part work entitled C.F. Kip Winger: Conversations with Nijinsky, intended to celebrate the life of ballet dancer and choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky.[9] The album was recorded by the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra and reached the top of the Traditional Classical Chart on the Billboard music charts.
Kip Winger’s theatrical composing debut is the musical thriller Get Jack. The story revolves around the five female victims of Jack the Ripper.
Winger and Gray released the rock/orchestral Get Jack concept album in July 2019, which entered at #7 on Billboard’s Cast Albums chart
Bootsy Collins
Collins and his comrades became part of the JB’s, James Brown’s backing band, from 1969 to 1971.
In regards to his tenure working for James Brown, Bootsy stated:
“He treated me like a son. And being out of a fatherless home, I needed that father figure and he really played up to it. I mean, Good Lord. Every night after we played a show, he called us back to give us a lecture about how horrible we sounded.
Brian Wilson
Though he got his start on surfing music, Brian, however, had a lifelong fear of the water and avoided the activity entirely.
As a young child, Brian Wilson lost almost all of the hearing in his right ear. The percentage of hearing left is so meager that he has lived most of his life essentially deaf in one ear. For a man whose late 60s stereo recordings from albums like Pet Sounds and Surfâs Up still inspire a certain awe among his fans, it seems incredible that he could only hear his music in mono.
Boz Burrell
1968 Burrell recorded a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Down in the Flood” and was joined by organist Jon Lord, guitarist Ritchie Blackmore and drummer Ian Paice, who formed Deep Purple at the same time.
In 1971 Burrell joined King Crimson as the new vocalist, having met Robert Fripp while both were performing with Centipede. After a last minute let down from new bassist Rick Kemp, Boz (who had only limited guitar-playing ability) was installed as the band’s bass player with Fripp and Ian Wallace teaching him to play rather than start the search again.
Peter Cetera
Cetera played in several groups in the Chicago area, including a popular local rock band named The Exceptions, which toured the Midwest in the mid-1960s. They released several singles and a five-song seven-inch EP titled Rock ‘N’ Roll Mass. Cetera is quoted as saying, ” ‘By the time I was 18 I was making more money than my dad.’ ”
In December 1967, Cetera arrived early for a show to watch a band called The Big Thing. Impressed by their use of a horn section combined with rock and roll, Cetera left The Exceptions to join The Big Thing within two weeks. The Big Thing, which soon changed their name to The Chicago Transit Authorit
Greg Lake
Lake began to play the guitar at the age of 12 and wrote his first song, “Lucky Man”, at the same age. He became a full-time musician at 17, playing in several rock bands until fellow Dorset guitarist Robert Fripp invited him to join King Crimson as their singer and bassist.
Doug âdUgâ Pinnick
He has seventeen half-brothers and sisters, from three mothers and two fathers.
In 1979, Pinnick was invited to join a band that was forming in Springfield, Missouri. with singer Greg X. Volz of Petra fame. He accepted the offer and re-located, only to have the band dissolve within a month of his arrival. He was soon offered a spot in guitarist Phil Keaggy’s touring band, along with the drummer from the failed Volz project, Jerry Gaskill. Pinnick has a co-writing credit on the track “Just a Moment Away” from Keaggy’s 1980 album Ph’lip Side. Pinnick toured with Keaggy for about a year before returning to Springfield and set about looking for a new musical project.
In 1998, Pinnick confirmed his homosexuality, coming out during an interview for Regeneration Quarterly.Diamante Music Group cancelled distribution of King’s X material in Christian retail stores following this information becoming public knowledge. In recent years, Pinnick has revealed that he now identifies as agnostic, in contrast to his Contemporary Christian music past.
John Lodge
Lodge has spoken on several occasions about being an Evangelical Christian, and credits his faith with preventing him from sinking into the more dangerous elements of the rock music business.
Lodge has been performing and recording with The Moody Blues for more than five decades, selling in excess of 70 million albums. Lodge has been voted one of the â10 most influential bass players on the planet,â
Ten years ago he began his boutique wine label âKrisemma Wineâ, hoping to share his favorite wines from around the world. To date he has produced three wines, a red from Napa Valley, California, and another from Bordeaux from France, and a white from the Elgin region of South Africa. This Elgin Chardonnay recently won a gold medal and two Trophies in the International Wine Challenge 2016, including Trophies for Best South African Chardonnay, and Best Elgin Region Chardonnay.
Peter Steele –
At 6â 8â and waist length black hair, he posed for both the cover and was the center fold for Playgirl 1995. The move made a splash among the bandâs female fans, and some of their male ones as well. âHe got upset when gay guys came up and asked for his autograph with the picture,â
However the price of being big was a heart condition known as atrial fibrillation which, Find a few years of cocaine usage, Lead to a heart trouble that killed him
Randy Meisner
He co-wrote the Eagles hit song “Take It to the Limit”, ( the band’s first million-selling single,) which he also sang.
Randy moved to California with a band named The Soul Survivors, later to be renamed The Poor (because, as Don Felder later said, “that is what they became”).It was a hardscrabble existence, as Meisner later recalled, “I never had a car, I had to walk. I sold the Los Angeles Free Press on Sunset and Highland. âI made about five bucks a day.” (Even though the band performed on “Study in Motion #1” which was featured in the 1967 Jack Nicholson film Hell’s Angels on Wheels and were booked for two weeks at the Salvation Club in New York City, opening for The Jimi Hendrix Experience)
After auditioning alongside Gregg Allman and Timothy B. Schmit, Meisner joined Poco, he quit the band because he was angry at being excluded from participation in the final mix. His image was removed from the painting on the album’s cover and replaced with a dog.
He was recruited by John Boylan to become active in Linda Ronstadt’s roster of backing musicians, which included Don Henley, Glenn Frey and Bernie Leadon, who later joined Meisner as the founding members of the Eagles
Mark Hoppus
When he first met Tom DeLonge (the other founder of Blink-182) he broke both of his heels climbing a lamp post in a bid to try and impress him
At High School, Mark would dress like Robert Smith from The Cure, including eye liner and red lip stick
Blackie Lawless
When he was a teenager he got in alot of trouble for vandalism, steeling cars etc…His older brother once robbed a grocery store and was sent to the army to be straightened out. Blackie was badly stabbed in a gang fight at the age of thirteen, and later was sent to military school, but was chucked out after 18 months of a two year sentence for beating up a Sargent Major
Blackie could have become a professional baseball player after leaving high school and play for the Cincinatti Reds, but he choose music
“If you look at Motley Crue (circu 1984), that was Sister, another band that was too far ahead for its time. We were the first band that I ever saw to use the pentagram. I met Nikki (Nikki Sixx) when he was 19 years old, he came to me when he was just starting and he says ‘Are you going to use any of that stuff you used to use?’ I said ‘Nope!’, he said ‘You mind if I use it?’ I said ‘take whatever you want’ because at that point, I realised that with an image like that, you end up painting yourself in a corner and you can’t get out’ and he also told him to be careful about using the pentagram, he said:
“Do not dabble in things you do not understand, there isn’t one person I know thats dabble with it and did things they would not do”
Blackie once said that the last thing that he does before he goes on stage is to check his socks.
“I have to have the right socks or I can’t play. I have actually threatened to hold up a gig if I havn’t got the right socks. They are my lucky Raiders socks, I have numerous pairs and the left one has to go on before the right one.”
Here is a fantastic short article about his conversion
How W.A.S.P.’s Blackie Lawless Left the Church + Refound Faith
https://www.loudwire.com/w-a-s-p-blackie-lawless-f-king-like-a-beast-smiting-beast//
Suzi Quatro
She was the first female bass player to become a major rock star.
Following her success with âCan the Canâ she played a recurring role as bass player Leather Tuscadero on the popular American sitcom Happy Days,
Her family name of “Quattrocchi” was shortened by the immigration authorities to Quatro
She was influenced at the age of six by seeing Elvis Presley perform on television. She has said that she had no direct female role models in music, but was inspired by Billie Holiday and liked the dress sense of Mary Weiss of the Shangri-Las “because she wore tight trousers and a waistcoat on top â she looked hot”
Playing with her sisters in the band cradle, she spotted by the record producer Mickie Most, who was seeking a female rock singer who could fill the void that the death of Janis Joplin had created.According to the Encyclopedia of Popular Music, his attention to Quatro was drawn by “her comeliness and skills as bass guitarist, singer and chief show-off in Cradle.” But. He only wanted Quatro, not the other sisters
Marco Hietala
After Hietala joined Nightwish, they started performing covers of well-known songs, with Hietala singing the lead vocal part in this break. The band has performed Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train”, W.A.S.P.’s “Wild Child”, Dio’s “Don’t Talk to Strangers”, Megadeth’s “Symphony of Destruction” and Pink Floyd’s “High Hopes”.
On 1 April 2010 it was said that Hietala would leave the band to concentrate on a choir career. This was identified as an April Fool’s joke, but was also a reference to his participation in Kuorosota (the localized Finnish version of Clash of the Choirs) in 2010. Hietala was the master of the Kuopio choir in the program’s second season. He came second in the contest, losing in the finals to the Joensuu choir, headed by pop rock singer Ilkka Alanko.
