Huge Rock Bands Where the Bass Player was the Lead Singer
I always had the impression that the guitar player was typically the singer in your average rock band. Maybe that’s true for your average rock band, but it is most clearly not true of your megastar groups. I can think of only a handful:
- John Lennon in The Beatles
- Ray Davies on rhythm guitar in The Kinks
- Jimi Hendrix in The Jimi Hendrix Experience
- Chrissie Hinde on rhythm guitar in The Pretenders
- Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top (I missed them in last week’s Power Trios piece)
- Jerry Garcia on lead guitar and Bobby Weir on rhythm guitar in The Grateful Dead
- Bob Dylan, of course, but then many of the folk/blues tradition; in fact, the Grateful Dead could be said to be of that tradition as well
- Chuck Berry must be mentioned as the quintessential guitar player/singer/songwriter, but he was just Chuck Berry, not a band
In fact, most of the biggest classic rock bands have/had dedicated lead vocalists. Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones is the prime example. “The greatest rock musician of all time, and he doesn’t even play an instrument,” as once said on Saturday Night Live.
In addition to Jagger, we have:
- Roger Daltrey of The Who.
- David Bowie of David Bowie and The Spider from Mars
- Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin.
- Ozzy Osbourne of Black Sabbath
- David Lee Roth of Van Halen.
- David Clayton-Thomas of Blood Sweat & Tears.
- Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane
- Janice Joplin of Big Brother and the Holding Company
- Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac
- Jon Anderson of Yes
- Freddie Mercury of Queen
Sometimes the keyboard player was the lead singer:
- PigPen in the very early Grateful Dead
- Burton Cummings of The Guess Who
- Elton John (not exactly a band)
- Billie Joel (also not exactly a band)
Occasionally it was the drummer!
- Levon Helms of The Band (though guitarist Robbie Robertson and bassist Rick Danko also sang lead in many songs)
- Carmine Appice of Beck, Bogart & Appice
- Phil Collins of late Genesis (though he often left the drum kit to sing)
More often, though, drummers sang lead only on novelty numbers:
- Ringo of The Beatles, e.g., Act Naturally (although With a Little Help from my Friends was hardly a novelty number)
- Keith Moon of The Who, Wicked Uncle Ernie from Tommy
- Ginger Baker of Cream, Pressed Rat and Wart Hog
But in a handful of the great bands, the bass player took most of the lead vocals:
The Police
Thin Lizzy
Cream
Emerson Lake and Palmer
To be fair, most of ELPs music had no vocals at all. But the few ELP songs you may have heard on the radio had vocals, and they were supplied by the bass (and sometimes guitar) player, Greg Lake. Those songs are Lucky Man, In The Beginning, and Karn Evil 9 (“Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends…”).
Rush
Chicago
Guitarist Terry Kath sang lead on a lot of songs, but bassist Pete Cetera’s high voice will probably be recognized more often because their later (after Kath accidently/stupidly blew his brains out in 1978) radio-friendly pop songs got a lot of air play.
And, finally, the greatest rock band where the bass player was the main lead singer does not need that qualifier at all. They are simply the greatest rock band of all time:
The Beatles
John (on guitar) and Paul (on bass, though sometimes piano and even guitar) each sang lead depending on who wrote the song. Early on, they just sang lead vocals together!
Paul’s second band, Wings, also had Paul on bass and lead vocals. And he wrote the songs. And managed the band. And conceived the videos. And…
