When I was a kid, the first few years after I got my first pos stereo I picked up pretty much every Beatles album over the course of a year or two prior to moving on to the Rolling Stones, the Who, Led Zeppelin, et al. And I did plenty of listening on headphones at the time...but I was never big on headphones. About 10 or 15 years ago I spent a little time revisiting my Beatles collection, using headphones again. I listened a bit differently than I had in the past. And the element that McCartney's bass playing brought to the mix really hit me for the first time. And I'm thinking, like, duh, this is something I can't believe I missed the first time around. But that's happened with a ton of stuff, many, many times.

So recently I was listening again to my Beatles albums, again, walking around Manhattan, with my Discman & a decent pair of headphones. Paul did some amazing things with that instrument. It really is unfair that he's been judged so harshly because of some of his lesser output over the past 30 years--though I think there's been less of that lately since his defenders tend to speak up more & it's kind of obvious to point to his solo work & mock it because it blows. But it really does seem like unless you're really hearing what he's doing booming out at you, you're missing a key ingredient there, and not just in any one era. It just made everything sound different to me. So...I'm an idiot for missing something most people have probably heard, and you might very well say 'no sh*t, Sherlock,' but if that's not the case, take a fresh listen sometime. I'm not saying he was the end-all and be-all, or that he invented the wheel, and yes the bass players with James Brown & the Funk Brothers & similar outfits deserve similar props, but listening to this stuff tells me that he was a huge influence on John Entwhistle, who I consider to the greatest 'rock' bass player of all time, and probably the most influential, but what he did kinda starts with Sir Paul so far as I can see. Not my favorite Beatle, but man, what a bass player.