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The Fender Bass: An Illustrated History
When Leo Fender added a bass to his growing family of instruments 50 years ago, he created a new world for musicians and revolutionized an industry in the process. Using hundreds of photographs, this exciting release chronicles the evolution of that instrument from 1951 to 2001, providing background, history and highly researched facts vital to understanding everything about this remarkable member of the Fender family. A must for all music fans!
- GenresMusicNonfictionHistory
128 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 27, 2024
I have no idea who J.W. Black is, aside from the author (or perhaps more appropriately compiler & photo editor) of this book. I am therefore not sure what his or her usual standards are, much less what the intention was for this particular book. The book does contain quite a few nice photographs of "vintage" Fender basses, although the vast majority are Precision and Jazz models of which there are many, many photos in many other books much like this as well. This book also, unfortunately, contains for all practical purposes virtually no text whatsoever aside from the many photo captions and the introductory section.
As I said, I'm damned if I know what the intention was behind publishing this book or its intended purpose. Page after page of pretty pictures of multi-coloured mid-1960s J-basses may be nice to look at, but it sure as hell isn't very enlightening or interesting. The coverage of the various models isn't completely a joke; they did picture the short-lived Bass V (also from the mid-1960s) on several pages. However, there was only one mention (and photo) of the contemporary but much more important and influential Bass VI in the entire book. This bizarrely lop-sided coverage continues into the 1970s & 1980s, where the author manages to show photographs of practically every version of the (deservedly) almost forgotten Elite series basses, not a single example of which I have ever actually seen anyone play (nor have I known anyone who owned one) in the more than four decades since they were introduced.
The very worst thing about this book though, to me at least, was firstly the fact that there was not a single mention or photo of the Musicmaster Bass, a model which was manufactured by Fender for roughly a decade and of which many thousands still survive and are played to this day. I used to own a black 1978 Fender Musicmaster Bass which sadly was stolen from me in 2006. Secondly, there was no mention whatsoever (and of course no photo) of the Bullet Deluxe Bass, which although it was only made for a bit over two years, was and remains beloved by a substantial portion of the few who owned one of them. One of these is Greta Brinkman, who formerly played with Moby (and has recorded and/or toured with many others), and another is me. I've never met Ms. Brinkman in person, but many years ago when the internet was still quite new, I was still an active musician, and she was just getting used to a then fairly modest level of success, we encountered one another online at some ungodly hour of the morning (both of us were insomniacs as well). While exchanging messages (on her original "Bass Goddess" website if I remember correctly), we bonded over the fact that we both started out on those amazing basses, and had the same taste in strings, too! The last time I heard from Greta was about ten years ago, and at that time she still had her Bullet Deluxe Bass. Mine was a 1981 model, and I very stupidly pawned it many years ago (as best I recall, I needed the money to have my amplifier serviced and re-tubed). I lost it in pawn, which I have regretted very much ever since then. I really miss that bass; it was the first bass I ever owned, and it was absolutely amazing. I certainly can't complain about the bass I play now, but that one was special, and not just because it was the first one...
To sum up, this book wasn't really worth even the small amount I paid for it, and if I had paid full price I would be pretty annoyed. If you can get it for a dollar or two, then whatever, but there are much better books available about Fender bass guitars in essentially the same price range.
As I said, I'm damned if I know what the intention was behind publishing this book or its intended purpose. Page after page of pretty pictures of multi-coloured mid-1960s J-basses may be nice to look at, but it sure as hell isn't very enlightening or interesting. The coverage of the various models isn't completely a joke; they did picture the short-lived Bass V (also from the mid-1960s) on several pages. However, there was only one mention (and photo) of the contemporary but much more important and influential Bass VI in the entire book. This bizarrely lop-sided coverage continues into the 1970s & 1980s, where the author manages to show photographs of practically every version of the (deservedly) almost forgotten Elite series basses, not a single example of which I have ever actually seen anyone play (nor have I known anyone who owned one) in the more than four decades since they were introduced.
The very worst thing about this book though, to me at least, was firstly the fact that there was not a single mention or photo of the Musicmaster Bass, a model which was manufactured by Fender for roughly a decade and of which many thousands still survive and are played to this day. I used to own a black 1978 Fender Musicmaster Bass which sadly was stolen from me in 2006. Secondly, there was no mention whatsoever (and of course no photo) of the Bullet Deluxe Bass, which although it was only made for a bit over two years, was and remains beloved by a substantial portion of the few who owned one of them. One of these is Greta Brinkman, who formerly played with Moby (and has recorded and/or toured with many others), and another is me. I've never met Ms. Brinkman in person, but many years ago when the internet was still quite new, I was still an active musician, and she was just getting used to a then fairly modest level of success, we encountered one another online at some ungodly hour of the morning (both of us were insomniacs as well). While exchanging messages (on her original "Bass Goddess" website if I remember correctly), we bonded over the fact that we both started out on those amazing basses, and had the same taste in strings, too! The last time I heard from Greta was about ten years ago, and at that time she still had her Bullet Deluxe Bass. Mine was a 1981 model, and I very stupidly pawned it many years ago (as best I recall, I needed the money to have my amplifier serviced and re-tubed). I lost it in pawn, which I have regretted very much ever since then. I really miss that bass; it was the first bass I ever owned, and it was absolutely amazing. I certainly can't complain about the bass I play now, but that one was special, and not just because it was the first one...
To sum up, this book wasn't really worth even the small amount I paid for it, and if I had paid full price I would be pretty annoyed. If you can get it for a dollar or two, then whatever, but there are much better books available about Fender bass guitars in essentially the same price range.
March 24, 2012
Pure brilliance.
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