If you fol­low music news, you’ll have read of late more than a cou­ple sto­ries about two for­mer mem­bers of two high­ly influ­en­tial bands—Jack­ie Fox of the Run­aways and Kim Gor­don of Son­ic Youth. Fox’s sto­ry of exploita­tion and sex­u­al assault as a six­teen year-old rock star comes with all the usu­al pub­lic doubts about her cred­i­bil­i­ty, and sad­ly rep­re­sents the expe­ri­ence of so many women in the music busi­ness. Gordon’s numer­ous sto­ries in her mem­oir Girl in a Band doc­u­ment her own strug­gles in punk and alt rock scenes that fos­tered hos­til­i­ty to women, in the band or no. The dis­cus­sion of these two musi­cians’ per­son­al nar­ra­tives is com­pelling and nec­es­sary, but we should not lose sight of their sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions as musi­cians, play­ing per­haps the least appre­ci­at­ed instru­ment in the rock and roll arsenal—the bass.

Mem­bers of bands that rou­tine­ly become the sub­ject of peti­tions to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Fox and Gor­don rep­re­sent just two of hun­dreds of women bass play­ers, many thump­ing away in obscu­ri­ty and no small num­ber achiev­ing suc­cess in indie, punk, met­al, and jazz bands, as solo artists, or as ses­sions musi­cians. Gordon’s low end helped dri­ve the sound of nineties alt-rock (see her with Son­ic Youth at the top), and Fox’s basslines under­scored sev­en­ties hard rock (with the Run­aways above).

Before either of them picked up the instru­ment, anoth­er huge­ly influ­en­tial bassist, Car­ol Kaye, played on thou­sands of hits as a mem­ber of L.A.’s top flight ses­sion musi­cians, the Wreck­ing Crew. A trained jazz gui­tarist, Kaye’s discog­ra­phy includes Nan­cy Sinatra’s “These Boots Were Made for Walk­ing,” the Beach Boy’s “Cal­i­for­nia Girls,” the Mon­kees “I’m a Believ­er,” Joe Cocker’s “Feel­in’ Alright”… and that’s just a tiny sam­pling. (See Kaye give Kiss’s Gene Sim­mons a bass les­son, above, and don’t miss a lengthy inter­view with her here.)

Kaye could, and did, play almost any­thing; she is an exceptional—and excep­tion­al­ly gracious—musician. And while few bass play­ers can match her when it comes to musi­cal range and abil­i­ty, many share her tal­ent for writ­ing sim­ple, yet unfor­get­table basslines that define gen­res and eras. Along­side Kim Gordon’s aggres­sive­ly melod­ic bass play­ing in Son­ic Youth, Kim Deal of the Pix­ies gave us mas­sive 90s alt-rock hooks and, like Gor­don, shared or took over vocal duties on some of the band’s biggest songs. (See them do “Gigan­tic” live in 1988 above.) Although they may not seem to have much in com­mon, both Deal and Kaye mas­tered the art of sim­plic­i­ty, par­ing down what could have been over­ly busy basslines to only the most essen­tial notes and rhyth­mic accents. (Deal dis­cuss­es her approach in an inter­view here.)

Like Kim Deal’s play­ing in the Pix­ies, Tina Weymouth’s bass in Talk­ing Heads worked as both a rhyth­mic anchor and a propul­sive engine beneath the band’s angu­lar gui­tars and synths. (See her awe­some inter­play above with the band and guest gui­tarist Adri­an Belew dur­ing the Remain in Light tour in Rome.) Wey­mouth not only com­prised one half of the funki­est art rock rhythm sec­tion in exis­tence, but she wrote what is per­haps the funki­est bassline in rock his­to­ry with her own project Tom Tom Club’s “Genius of Love.” It’s almost impos­si­ble to imag­ine what the 80s would have sound­ed like with­out Weymouth’s bass play­ing (though we could have lived with­out her danc­ing).

No list of clas­sic female bass play­ers will ever be complete—there’s always one more name to add, one more bass riff to savor, one more argu­ment to be had over who is over- and under­rat­ed. But it should pro­voke no argu­ment what­so­ev­er to point toward Meshell Nde­geo­cel­lo as not only one of the most tal­ent­ed bass play­ers, but one of the most tal­ent­ed musi­cians peri­od of her gen­er­a­tion. See her and band above play “Dead End” live on KCRW. Unlike most of the play­ers above (except per­haps Car­ol Kaye), Nde­geo­cel­lo is a high­ly tech­ni­cal play­er, but also a very taste­ful one. Much of her music flies under the radar, but most peo­ple will be famil­iar with her cov­er of Van Morrison’s “Wild Nights” with John Cougar Mel­len­camp and her neosoul hit “If That’s Your Boyfriend.”

Again, this is only the briefest, small­est sam­pling of excel­lent female bass players—in rock, jazz, soul, etc. An expand­ed list would include play­ers like Melis­sa Auf der Maur, Esper­an­za Spald­ing, and many more names you may or may not have heard before. One you prob­a­bly haven’t, but should, is the name Tal Wilken­feld, an Aus­tralian prodi­gy who has played with Her­bie Han­cock, Chick Corea, the All­man Broth­ers, and Jeff Beck. (See her absolute­ly kill it in a per­for­mance with Beck above from 2007.) Like Car­ol Kaye many decades before her, Wilken­feld made her name at a very young age, play­ing gui­tar in jazz clubs, and quick­ly became a high­ly in-demand play­er called—at age 21—“the future of bass.” Are there any oth­er women play­ers out there deserv­ing of the title, or of inclu­sion in a bass play­ing Hall of Fame? Let us know in the com­ments, and include a link to your favorite live per­for­mance.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Meet Car­ol Kaye, the Unsung Bassist Behind Your Favorite 60s Hits

Four Female Punk Bands That Changed Women’s Role in Rock

Hear Iso­lat­ed Tracks From Five Great Rock Bassists: McCart­ney, Sting, Dea­con, Jones & Lee

The Sto­ry of the Bass: New Video Gives Us 500 Years of Music His­to­ry in 8 Min­utes

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

“You can’t have Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart as your favorite com­posers,” said con­duc­tor and San Fran­cis­co Sym­pho­ny music direc­tor Michael Tilson Thomas. “They sim­ply define what music is!” True enough, though it does­n’t seem to have stopped any­one from, when asked to name their clas­si­cal music of choice, unhesi­tat­ing­ly respond with the names of Bach, Beethoven, or Mozart — and Mozart most often. So why does the man who com­posed, among oth­er works, the Piano Con­cer­to No. 24 in C minor, the Sym­pho­ny No. 40 in G minor, and Don Gio­van­ni still com­mand such instinc­tive alle­giance near­ly 225 years after his death?

“Mozart did not come from nowhere,” writes New York­er music crit­ic Alex Ross. “He was the prod­uct of a soci­ety that was avid for music on every lev­el, that believed in the pos­si­bil­i­ty of an all-encom­pass­ing musi­cal genius. The soci­ety we live in now believes oth­er­wise; we divide music into sub­cul­tures and sub­gen­res, we sep­a­rate clas­si­cal music from pop­u­lar music, we locate genius in the past.” But as past genius­es go, we’ve picked a good one in Mozart to car­ry for­ward with us into our tech­no­log­i­cal age: the kind of age where you can lis­ten to an 18th-cen­tu­ry com­poser’s col­lect­ed works with the sim­ple click of a mouse.

The sim­ple click of a mouse, that is, onto this Spo­ti­fy playlist of the com­plete Chrono­log­i­cal Mozart, brought to you by the same folks who put togeth­er the playlists we’ve pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured of 68 hours of Shake­speare and the clas­si­cal music in Stan­ley Kubrick­’s films. (If you don’t yet have the free soft­ware need­ed to lis­ten, down­load it here.) A few tracks have van­ished since the playlist’s cre­ation (such are the vicis­si­tudes of Spo­ti­fy) but it still offers about 127 hours of the (most­ly) com­plete works of Wolf­gang Amadeus Mozart, the afore­men­tioned famous pieces and well beyond. Lis­ten and you’ll not only under­stand why Mozart defines what music is, but — apolo­gies to Michael Tilson Thomas — why you, too, should num­ber him among your favorites.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Leck Mich Im Arsch (“Kiss My Ass”): Lis­ten to Mozart’s Scat­o­log­i­cal Canon in B Flat (1782)

Ger­man String Quar­tet Per­forms Vival­di & Mozart in Delight­ful­ly Com­i­cal & Acro­bat­ic Rou­tine

New­ly Dis­cov­ered Piece by Mozart Per­formed on His Own Fortepi­ano

Read an 18th-Cen­tu­ry Eye­wit­ness Account of 8‑Year-Old Mozart’s Extra­or­di­nary Musi­cal Skills

The Recy­cled Orches­tra: Paraguayan Youth Play Mozart with Instru­ments Clev­er­ly Made Out of Trash

The Clas­si­cal Music in Stan­ley Kubrick’s Films: Lis­ten to a Free, 4 Hour Playlist

Col­in Mar­shall writes on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer, and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

So many huge­ly suc­cess­ful and tal­ent­ed musi­cians have died at age 27 that it almost seems rea­son­able to believe the num­ber rep­re­sents some mys­ti­cal coef­fi­cient of tal­ent and tragedy. But sev­er­al decades before Jimi Hen­drix, Janis Joplin, Jim Mor­ri­son, Kurt Cobain, or Amy Wine­house left us too soon, Robert John­son—the man who pio­neered sell­ing one’s soul for rock and roll—died in 1938, at age 27, under mys­te­ri­ous and like­ly vio­lent cir­cum­stances. He was already a leg­end, and his sto­ry of meet­ing Satan at the cross­roads to make an exchange for his extra­or­di­nary tal­ent had already per­me­at­ed the pop­u­lar cul­ture of his day and became even more ingrained after his death—making him, well, maybe the very first rock star.

John­son’s few record­ings—29 songs in total—went on to influ­ence Eric Clap­ton, Kei­th Richards, 27 club mem­ber Bri­an Jones and so many oth­ers. And that’s not to men­tion the hun­dreds of Delta and Chica­go blues gui­tarists who picked John­son’s brain, or stopped short of sell­ing their souls try­ing to out­play him. But John­son, begins the ani­mat­ed short above (which tells the tale of the blues­man­’s infer­nal deal) “wasn’t always such an amaz­ing gui­tarist.” Leg­end has it he “cov­et­ed the tal­ents of Son House” and dreamed of star­dom. He acquired his tal­ent overnight, it seemed to those around him, who sur­mised he must have set out to the cross­roads, met the dev­il, and “made a deal.”

The rest of the story—of Robert Johnson’s fatal encounter with the jeal­ous hus­band of an admirer—is a more plau­si­ble devel­op­ment, though it too may be apoc­ryphal. “Not all of this may be true,” says the short film’s title cards, “but one thing is for cer­tain: No Robert John­son, No Rock and Roll.” This too is anoth­er leg­end. Oth­er ear­ly blues­men like Blind Willie John­son and Robert’s hero Son House exert­ed sim­i­lar influ­ence on 60s blues revival­ists, as of course did lat­er elec­tric play­ers like Mud­dy Waters, Howl­in’ Wolf, and B.B. King. John­son was a phe­nom­e­nal inno­va­tor, and a sin­gu­lar voice, but his repertoire—like those of most blues play­ers at the time—consisted of vari­a­tions on old­er songs, or respons­es to oth­er, very tal­ent­ed musi­cians.

Most of the songs he record­ed were in this vein—with at least two very notable excep­tions: “Cross Road Blues” (or just “Cross­roads”) and “Me and the Dev­il Blues,” both of which have con­tributed to the myth of John­son’s pact with Lucifer, includ­ing the part about the dark angel com­ing to col­lect his debt. In the lat­ter song, ani­mat­ed in a video above, Satan comes knock­ing on the singer’s door ear­ly in the morn­ing. “Hel­lo Satan,” says John­son, “I believe it’s time to go.” Much of what we think about John­son’s life comes from these songs, and from much rumor and innu­en­do. He may have been mur­dered, or—like so many lat­er stars who died too young—he may have sim­ply burned out. One blues singer who claims she met him as a child remem­bers him near the end of his life as “ill” and “sick­ly,” reports the Austin Chron­i­cle, “in a state of phys­i­cal dis­re­pair as though he’d been roughed up.”

John­son schol­ar Eli­jah Wald describes his his­to­ry like that of many founders of reli­gious sects: “So much research has been done [on John­son] that I have to assume the over­all pic­ture is fair­ly accu­rate. Still, this pic­ture has been pieced togeth­er from so many tat­tered and flim­sy scraps that almost any one of them must to some extent be tak­en on faith.” John­son’s “spir­i­tu­al descen­dants,” as Rolling Stone’s David Fricke calls his rock and roll prog­e­ny, have no trou­ble doing just that. Nor do fans of rock and blues and oth­er artists who find the Robert John­son leg­end tan­ta­liz­ing.

In the film above, “Hot Tamales,” ani­ma­tor Ric­car­do Maneglia adapts the myth, and quotes from “Cross­road Blues,” to tell the sto­ry of Bob, who jour­neys to the cross­roads to meet sin­is­ter voodoo deity Papa Leg, replay­ing John­son’s sup­posed ren­dezvous in a dif­fer­ent reli­gious con­text. In “Cross­road“ ‘s lyrics, John­son is actu­al­ly “plead­ing with God for mer­cy,” writes Frank DiGia­co­mo in Van­i­ty Fair, “not bar­gain­ing with the dev­il.” Nonetheless—legendary or not—his evo­ca­tion of dev­il­ish deals in “Me and the Dev­il Blues” and grit­ty, emo­tion­al account of self-destruc­tion in “Cross­roads” may on their own add suf­fi­cient weight to that far-reach­ing idea: “No Robert John­son, No Rock and Roll.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

B.B. King Explains in an Ani­mat­ed Video Whether You Need to Endure Hard­ship to Play the Blues

Kei­th Richards Wax­es Philo­soph­i­cal, Plays Live with His Idol, the Great Mud­dy Waters

Leg­endary Folk­lorist Alan Lomax: ‘The Land Where the Blues Began’

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness.