JOHN ENTWISTLE Biography - Musicians

 
 

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JOHN ENTWISTLE

Name: John Entwistle                                                                   
Birth name: John Alec Entwistle                                                       
Also known as The Ox, Thunderfingers                                                   
Born: 9 October 1944 Chiswick, London, England                                         
Died: 27 June 2002 Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.                                             
                                                                                       
John Alec Entwistle (October 9, 1944 - June 27, 2002) was an English bass             
guitarist, songwriter, singer, and horn player, who was best known as the bass         
guitarist for the rock band The Who. He is regarded as one of the greatest and         
most influential rock bassists of all time, creating an aggressive lead               
sound that helped influence contemporary and later bassists such as Steve Harris,     
Lemmy, Geddy Lee, John Paul Jones, Phil Lesh, Noel Redding, Billy Sheehan, Chris       
Squire, Duff McKagan, Markus Grosskopf, Mike Watt, Peter Hook and Krist               
Novoselic.                                                                             
                                                                                       
Entwistle helped uncover the potential of the bass guitar as a lead instrument,       
using aggressive pentatonic lead lines, and a trebly sound virtually unheard of       
in the early 1960s. He pioneered the use of roundwound steel bass strings, made       
to his personal specifications by RotoSound. His search for a sound to cut             
through The Who's sonic onslaught led him to experiment with more and different       
basses, leading him to amass a collection of over 200 instruments by the time of       
his death. His search for the perfect sound led him to experiment most notably         
with Fender and Rickenbacker basses in the 1960s, Alembic's basses in the 1970s,       
Warwick in the 1980s, and Status all-graphite basses in the 1990s.