Basslines #11: Jah Wobble was the self-taught bassist in Public Image Ltd and moved from postpunk into funk, jazz, global folk and more.

John Wardle taught himself how to play by copying the basslines on his favourite reggae records on a bass guitar given to him by his friend John Ritchie.

A few years later his friend had become the iconic Sid Vicious and, in an irony that would soon magnify with Sid’s death weeks later, Wardle took over his role in their friend John Lydon’s new band.

He channelled his influences, first formed by seeing Bob Marley & The Wailers in 1975 – “the best gig I’ve ever seen” – into the new band, Public Image Ltd.

His first appearance as Jah Wobble (Sid’s mangled attempt to pronounce Wardle’s name) was with the rumbling bassline of PiL’s debut single, Public Image.

But he came into his own on the Metal Box album, channelling the influence of his hero Aston ‘Family Man’ Barrett of The Wailers into his own signature style on songs like Poptones and Careering. 

That formative reggae influence has always remained at the heart of his music, and he has made numerous dub albums during an eclectic career ranging from postpunk to funk, jazz and global folk music; even a neo-classical requiem.

His other big influence was shortwave radio transmissions heard on a transistor radio in his East End tower block home, the programmes from stations like Radio Cairo and Radio Tehran crackling and phasing in and out of the stratosphere – in the same sort of style as dub reggae production.

Little wonder that he has always walked a line close to the avant-garde and in 1981, at a time when we were starting to hear what was then called “world music”, he collaborated with two members of the influential German krautrockers Can.

After falling out with his old friend Lydon following the magnificent Metal Box album, he took a diversion to record the album Full Circle with Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit.

Blending his hypnotic basslines with Czukay’s guitar and keyboards (and French horn), and Liebezeit’s characteristically precise percussion, it treads a similar path to the previous year’s pioneering collaboration between Brian Eno and David Byrne, My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts.

This tune, released as a 12-inch single, is one of my favourites: up there with his work on Metal Box songs like Poptones and Careering. But pretty much everything he has done is worth investigating.