When I was 17 in 1988, I bought my first bass guitar, a $50 Fender Precision copy. It was terrible, and my rudimentary playing was even worse, but in my head, of course, I sounded exactly like Paul McCartney, John Taylor, Geezer Butler and most of all, Cliff Burton, who had died just a couple of years before.
As a teenage Metallica fan, I was intrigued by the unexpectedly melodic nature of Cliff’s playing. Nowadays we know that this was the result of his study of Geddy Lee, Steve Harris and Johann Sebastian Bach, but back then, all I knew was that he was playing great-sounding lines and fills, often through a barrage of distortion. I gave it my best shot, and several decades later I should really thank my long-suffering parents for putting up with it.
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“I couldn’t be happier to come back after all these years”: Pantera’s Rex Brown rejoins Spector’s artist ranks – less than a year after dropping his first Epiphone signature
“I used my P-Bass in the studio and my Jazz Bass live, because it projected a little louder”: Originally recorded as a B-side, this riff-driven blues became a Jimi Hendrix classic – and bassist Billy Cox played a pivotal role
