Ian Hill is the most disciplined bass player on earth ...

[uwe]

The man who doesn't waste notes.  And JP doesn't get more stripped down than this, "unguitared" so to say. Personal high pont is 2.00.07 - the human root note metronome. I'm not knocking him, those who know me know that JP hits my most primal nerves, but this man sure takes his job very serious and is not distracted easily. 

[Highlander]

"I can not argue the point more that he certainly has a solid bottom end ..." reputedly attributable to Rob Halford...

[gearHed289]

I've always admired his ability to hang on one note through a whole series of chords within a riff.

[uwe]

Oh, I like that too (and do it a lot). I hate it when I have to follow guitarist chord changes throughout - makes me wonder "Am I his E string or what?!" I've often been in situations where - often enough drummers curiously enough - I've been asked: "Why don't you change the note here, Uwe, like everyone else does?" and I go "That is exactly why I'm not doing it, it sounds less dramatic that way and I get noticed less!"  That is where my reputation: "Uwe, you either underplay as if mocking the music or you overplay!" comes from.

John McCoy (a man with a jazz rock background btw) of the Gillan Band and later on Mammoth was great at building up tension like that:









But Roger Glover could be ostinate to great effect too:



And I love what Andy Shernoff does here - one note, but that change from quarters to eights at 4.31 is orgasmic:

[gweimer]

Let's not forget Cliff Williams.




And while it doesn't hang on one note, you have to love Jon Brandt on this one for the intro alone.

[gearHed289]

Some interesting claims from Pete Comita:

"I Can't Take It" was a combination of two songs I had written before I joined Cheap Trick. One day, in the limo, I played a cassette for Robin of those songs. One was called "I Can't Take It", the other, "Move'n On". Robin said he liked those songs and wanted to work on them with me. So one day I went to his house in Rockford and arranged both songs to make one. I already had the melody and music to those songs, and the title "I Can't Take It". Robin helped me arrange that song, but arranging isn't writing. I quit the band during the recording of the album "One On One".  Most of the bass playing on that record is me, although I didn't get credit. The lick in the intro of "If You Want My Love" I came up with and played it on the bass. Rick decided to use it and played it on guitar on the record. Those are the only things I wasn't credited for."