3. Sly & The Family StoneThere’s A Riot Goin’ On

The beginning for me of my love of funk. And the key thing for me was the lyrics – they’re so dark, but so direct. “Looking at the devil grinning at his gun / Fingers start shakin’, I begin to run” – these were lyrics that hit you right between the eyes. Larry Graham is credited with creating that bass sound that later on Jaco Pastorius would perfect to a tee, and Marcus Miller later as well – that was hugely important to me as a bass player. For me it seemed Sly was trying to do the same thing as Jimi, and when you saw footage of them live they were just astonishing.