The greatest bassist in rock and roll history, John Entwistle, is dead at 57. I was a big Who fan growing up, and Who’s Next survived my general abandonment of classic rock to remain a favorite. It always sounded as if there were at least two sets of hands on the fretboard when he played; with him on bass and Keith Moon on drums, you had the greatest rhythm section of modern recorded music.

I remember in junior high playing the classic boys game, Supergroup, where you picked the best rock stars on each of the major instruments and imagined what they’d sound like together. The guitar player would vary quite a bit (most often Hendrix or Jimmy Page, but occasionally ill-advised thoughts like Ritchie Blackmore), and the drummer was usually a tossup between Moon and John Bonham. But the bass player was always John Entwistle.

28 June 2002

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