Early Sign of Things to Come

I've always thought of Paul McCartney as the person who turned the focus on bass guitar. This is mainly because the Beatles had in effect three lead guitarists. George Harrison is credited as lead and played lead on many of the early Mop Top hits, but Paul is as good, if not better at it and it can be witnessed in his basically playing lead on bass in songs as diverse as "Rain" and "I Want You (She's So Heavy."

When rockabilly ruled the teenage airwaves, it was most often stand up or "slap" bass, that huge fiddle, for lack of another word, but during the recording of the soundtrack of "Jailhouse Rock" Elvis gave us a glimpse of what was in store. He played bass on "You're So Square (Baby, I Don't Care" which was the main groove of the song.

It wasn't until nearly a decade later that bass guitar played such an up front role in rock n roll. Here's a picture of Elvis during that session and holding the bass guitar and talking to Bill Black. The caption could read, "Your days are numbered, buddy!"