Bob Dylan was the first singer who couldn't sing
In his heyday, I really liked Dylan's voice. It was expressive and contrary to much opinion, when he was ready, he had a very tuneful voice. But one of the things I liked about him was that he wanted to do things on his own terms, rightly or wrongly. His albums from the mid-60s contain a useful combination of beautiful singing, fake accenting {only he could say "Rrrruuuurrrssse !" when he meant "Rose"}, near rapping in a White man's take-off of the Black preacher and scrawly neo-howling which lend themselves well to the variety that was coming in in that period. The Beatles had 4 vocalists. Dylan had 4 vocals !!
I am leaning towards an opinion that vinyl records held bass back. Because of the grooves that had to be cut and if the speakers were too close, bouncing the needle
I think that is true of quite a few British albums as far as the 1960s was concerned. But in America, they seemed to have that problem sorted. British artists working in British studios were envious of the bass sounds that came off American records. But it pushed the Brits to find ways of developing the bass guitar sound themselves.
"Needle" is such a funny-looking word when you read it.
I think digital was one of the best things that happened to bass
I think digital was simply the next logical phase in recording. I think both the Brits and the Americans had the bass sussed long before there was digital recording.
I think that part of it was simply the newness of the bass guitar. It didn't exist prior to 1952 and even then, acoustic bass players, rather than take up the bass guitar, would rather use a pick-up and amp. Interestingly, it was the British bands that no one had ever heard of {including the Beatles in their pre~1962 incarnations} that really went for the bass guitar in their droves. But it wasn't regarded as anything to write home about. As Paul McCartney once put it, the bass was for the fat boy at the back. Their "bassist" Stuart Sutcliffe, couldn't really play the instrument but that didn't stop the band getting gigs. And when he left, they asked George Harrison if he'd take over bass and his reply was three steps north of "fuck off !"
The bass guitar being taken seriously took quite a long time. Jazz bassists tended to regard electric bassists as charlatans playing with toys, Phil Spector didn't really have much idea of what to do with bass guitars which is why they got doubled.
But gradually, they began to assume more importance, especially when Brian Wilson, the Motown guys {including Carol Kaye on occasion}, then the Who and others started to see that it was one of the parts of a band that could really alter how a song sounded and was a versatile instrument, more diverse than had been supposed when Leo Fender was making the first one.
I've long felt that studio engineers never really knew how to capture a definitive sort of bass sound until into the 70s, which is why so many of the bass tones of the 60s and early 70s are so varied and fantastic.