Bass player treat--McCartney's bass part for "Rain"

I've long lost my "Beatles Forever" book from the late 70's. Yet I remember (or did I) reading that Paul's bass heavy mix in "Rain", and "Paperback Writer" came directly from hearing John Entwistle's bass in "Substitute"? The timeline would fit since The Who single came out three months prior to PW/R.

 

But don't go too cheap; you won't get a good sound and chances are higher you'll get discouraged.

 

For watching fingers go, we should be looking at an Entwistle video then, the two are like night and day. This is a great part of (and for) Rain for sure, but watching those fingers, it would be fairly simplistic playing for the Ox.

 

Beatles Gear has a picture from April 1966 of Paul with the Rickenbacker. Didn't he use this on Rain?

In the promo clip he uses the Hofner, but they would revert to familiar gear for the publicity clips.

 

I was only writing of the bass instrument dominating the overall sound mix of a song, I.E. "Substitute". Of course most of the Who's material at this time had that "sound", but "Substitute" was a very popular single in the U.K. at the time. This is why I wonder out of the blue, the Beatles come out with a single three months after "Substitute" where the A and B sides have this "sound"?


As far as technical ability goes, only Jack Casady was in Entwistle's league during the 60's. That does not take away Paul's melodic approach to the instrument. Paul was a guitarist who was forced to play bass when Stuart Sutcliffe left the band in Hamburg. The fact that Paul played the guitar solo on "Taxman" speaks volumes.

 

That guy with the Rickenbacker guitar was getting a fantastic tone. I definitely agreed with his interpretations of Lennon's riffs and style. The bass videos were great too. I guess there's an old joke in musician's circles about the Hofner bass being a cheap piece of balsa wood that would probably float if you tossed it in water. Good thing the guy playing Something treated the instrument with a bit more respect than that. He totally NAILED it. What a gorgeous bass line. A complete piece of music in and of itself.