During a recent appearance on The Mistress Carrie Podcast, legendary bassist Billy Sheehan (MR. BIG, THE WINERY DOGS, David Lee Roth, TALAS) praised THE BEATLES’ Paul McCartney, saying “almost anything McCartney did is just brilliant.” He elaborated (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “Some people don’t get it. I think if I give me enough time, I’ll get them to get it. I’ve been lucky to sit down with somebody, and they would explain a piece of music to me, and then I’d hear it, and go, ‘Oh, I get it now.’ A buddy of mine sat me down, ‘Okay, this is Stravinsky, and it’s called ‘The Rite Of Spring’. And this was so controversial, there were riots on the streets of Paris when it debuted.’ I said, ‘Wow.’ And then [I go], ‘Oh, I get it now.’ If I would have just heard it, I would have thought, ‘I don’t know. It’s just some classical music that I don’t like.’ So sometimes you need to explain. And I would be happy to explain to anyone why Paul McCartney is probably the greatest — really, just a really great, great player. James Jamerson, of course — anything by THE TEMPTATIONS or any Motown [recordings] that he played on, very similar. The bass was all over the place. McCartney’s bass is all over the place, but it’s so musical and woven in so well with what’s going on with every other component of the song and the music, it’s quite amazing.”He continued: “I don’t know if I’ve told the story in public, but a friend of my worked with — I hesitate to say, ’cause I don’t want to blow his cover — AC/DC bass player Cliff Williams. And a buddy of mine went to do some business with him. He was getting rid of some old gear. And I don’t know any of the AC/DC guys, and I’m the biggest AC/DC fan of all time. I love that band with every cell of my heart. And he came back to Nashville. He goes, ‘Bill, are you home?’ I go, ‘Yeah.’ He goes, ‘What’s going on? I gotta come over.’ ‘Oh, okay.’ He comes over and he brings a case. And I go, ‘What’s that?’ He goes, ‘Open it up.’ It’s a Höfner 1973 Beatle bass. And he said, ‘Cliff wanted you to have it.’ I had tears in my eyes. Just amazing. Apparently, [Cliff] knew that I was a big BEATLES fan. I didn’t even know he knew who I was. It’s one of my most valued treasures ever to get a gift from that man. And he, as a bass player too — man, what a great, great player. AC/DC, the sound of those records and his bass playing on it, just so amazing. But you could have knocked me over with a feather. I had tears in my eyes.”Asked by Mistress Carrie how you write a “thank you” card for a gift like that, Billy responded: “[My friend] was kind enough to give me [Cliff’s] number, so I thanked him in person. And what a wonderful guy and what an incredible player. And wow. I was completely blown away. [It was] one of the nicest things anyone’s ever done for me. And as I mentioned, I still float up to the moon — just the idea of it. And the thing is just perfect. And so playing McCartney on that is just so enriching and so cool. I will sit down with that bass, I think, on my next birthday and have a bottle of wine and put [BEATLES’] ‘Sgt. Pepper’s [Lonely Hearts Club Band]’ [album] on and play the whole thing on that bass. It’ll be so great.”In a separate interview with Bass Musician magazine, Sheehan was asked how he approaches working with guitar heroes. He responded: “I like to work ‘with’ guitarists. I do what they need to have done. In the past when I played with Steve Vai, I removed myself from the equation. My approach was, ‘What does Steve want? What does he need?’ In some ways, it takes the burden off me to be continuously creative. I strive to play accurately and righteously and make him happy. I don’t want him to even think of the bass while he is doing his thing. He is free and I am providing that big foundation. Think of it as 18 inches of steel-reinforced concrete. With Paul Gilbert in MR. BIG, I always make sure there are big fat notes underneath him while he is soloing and I get the heck out of his way. I want to hear him too.”Bass is primarily a supportive instrument. Most anybody will agree to that, I believe. The instrument does its own things too; sometimes it’s really woven into improvisation, sometimes it’s the foundation.”The problem I have with some guitarists is that if I move harmonically, they get thrown off because they cannot play over changes. Even if I am in the key of E minor, if I do some movement in the key other than the root, they are completely lost. I tell them not to worry, we are still in the same key!”If you listen to Bach, what he does in the left-hand affects the sound of the right hand. The moving notes create intriguing counterpoint which are essential components of music and harmony.”Depending on the guitarist, I’ll move around all over the place. Within reason, of course. I give them the option to go where they want to go, and not to work because I’ll follow you. I will instinctively get out of the way when you need me to. Lock in with the drummer and I’ll jump in when it’s time. This way we create an interchange — an improvisation. Again, think Bach with the left hand and the right hand. You hit one note, you hit another, and something changes. That is harmony. It creates a third tone in a way. When you can do that as a bass player it leads to more harmonic complexity in a good way. That’s not to say that Cliff Williams in AC/DC isn’t a genius. He’s pounding that beautiful open E string while Angus [Young] is doing his thing and it is glorious. Amazing. Same thing with Ian Hill of JUDAS PRIEST — he holds the whole band together.”Sheehan, known for his work with TALAS, Steve Vai, David Lee Roth, MR. BIG, NIACIN, SONS OF APOLLO and THE WINERY DOGS, has been a Yamaha artist for 40 years. He first experimented with features such as scalloped fingerboard and dual outputs on his original, heavily customized bass, which he affectionately refers to it as “The Wife,” and brought these defining elements to his signature Yamaha Attitude series.[embedded content]