In a recent appearance on The Mistress Carrie Podcast, bassist Billy Sheehan picked his favorite bassist, calling him the greatest bassist of all time — and it’s none other than Paul McCartney.
He explained: “Some people don’t get it. I think if I give me enough time, I’ll get them to get it. I’ve been lucky to sit down with somebody, and they would explain a piece of music to me, and then I’d hear it, and go, ‘Oh, I get it now.’ A buddy of mine sat me down, ‘Okay, this is Stravinsky, and it’s called ‘The Rite Of Spring.’ And this was so controversial, there were riots on the streets of Paris when it debuted.’ I said, ‘Wow.’ And then [I go], ‘Oh, I get it now.’ If I would have just heard it, I would have thought, ‘I don’t know. It’s just some classical music that I don’t like.’ So sometimes you need to explain.”
The bassist said that he would love to explain why McCartney is the greatest if given the opportunity. “And I would be happy to explain to anyone why Paul McCartney is probably the greatest — really, just a really great, great player. James Jamerson, of course — anything by The Temptations or any Motown [recordings] that he played on, very similar. The bass was all over the place. McCartney’s bass is all over the place, but it’s so musical and woven in so well with what’s going on with every other component of the song and the music, it’s quite amazing.”
As a side note to Sheehan’s praise of McCartney, the Mr. Big bassist also shared a story about receiving an instrument from another bass legend, connecting to his love for The Beatles and McCartney. “I don’t know if I’ve told the story in public, but a friend of mine worked with — I hesitate to say, ’cause I don’t want to blow his cover — AC/DC bass player Cliff Williams. And a buddy of mine went to do some business with him. He was getting rid of some old gear. And I don’t know any of the AC/DC guys, and I’m the biggest AC/DC fan of all time. I love that band with every cell of my heart,” he revealed.
“[My friend] came back to Nashville. He goes, ‘Bill, are you home?’ I go, ‘Yeah.’ He goes, ‘What’s going on? I gotta come over.’ ‘Oh, okay.’ He comes over and he brings a case. And I go, ‘What’s that?’ He goes, ‘Open it up.’ It’s a Höfner 1973 Beatle bass. And he said, ‘Cliff wanted you to have it,'” the bassist recalled.
Sharing his emotions, he continued: “I had tears in my eyes. Just amazing. Apparently, [Cliff] knew that I was a big Beatles fan. I didn’t even know he knew who I was. It’s one of my most valued treasures ever to get a gift from that man. And he, as a bass player too — man, what a great, great player. AC/DC, the sound of those records and his bass playing on it, just so amazing. But you could have knocked me over with a feather. I had tears in my eyes.”
While Sheenan made his love for the bassist Beatle clear in other interviews too, he also often mentions names like Yardbirds, Jethro Tull, and Vanilla Fudge.
