1.  John Entwistle

Ahh, The Ox…  back in my burgeoning music fandom days I wanted to be a bass player and a big reason why was due to Mr. John Entwistle.  One listen to “My Generation” and hearing that bass breakdown midway through the song had me hook, line, and sinker.  And it wasn’t just me; we had fellow Who fans in high school that loved the Who and even a couple of them actually played bass in the school band and had their own garage bands in the process.  It was always “we wanna hear ‘The Real Me’!” if you’d see those guys playing a school function and they’d always happily oblige with a few notes from the Quadrophenia classic.  The amazing thing about Entwistle was that he was always the rock in The Who while Townshend and Moon would often play off each other and take off in flight while “Thunderfingers” would rumble along, keeping everything in check.

There are just too many iconic Entwistle moments to count-  besides the aforementioned two songs, you can’t go wrong with “Dreaming From The Waist”, “Won’t Get Fooled Again”, “Young Man Blues”, “Sparks”, “Who Are You”…  the list goes on and on.  Just go out to YouTube and search for “Entwistle isolated” and soak up the fat, metallic tone and musicality of it all (“Eminence Front” is an absolute gem in regards to funky groove and “Won’t Get Fooled Again” is just fat out ridiculousness in a good way).  Entwistle’s death in 2002 was incredibly sad, especially since The Who was starting to make a bit of a (nother) comeback of sorts.  There hasn’t been another that packs quite the punch and full scale approach as The Ox in regards to tone, dynamics, dexterity, and “lead guitar bass”.