First Electric Bass Guitar

While there were lively debates raging within the unusual tool community for several years about numerous puzzling very early guitars – not forgetting the perennial issue of only which precisely was responsible for “inventing” the electric guitar – it appears little energetic dialog has surrounded the bass.

So far it's been acknowledged common knowledge the electric bass guitar had been created by Leo Fender in Fullerton California around 1951. Without a doubt, Fender’s Precision bass – a model actually named to emphasize the exacting intonation a new player could achieve along with its “uniquely” fretted neck – rapidly became a standard for solidbody basses. However, using the current breakthrough of a surviving example of an ultra-rare electric bass guitar dating back on mid ’30s, this “history” should be reexamined.

Despite having brand new information emerging, one idea particular to remain is that the existence of the electrified bass may be credited with affecting contemporary music about up to its relative, the guitar. Without a doubt, besides adding an even more powerful low-end throb to a lot of kinds of music, some knowledgeable individuals have gone as far as to proclaim the electric bass had been intrinsically in charge of the increase of new genres of music.

Like, it's tough to imagine reggae existing at all without having the electric bass guitar, hence booming instrument’s role is obviously a determining facet of funk. Pre-dating those genres, R&B songs made its determining jump from the early-’50s jazz fringe as a result of sonic boost of this electric bass. And throughout that exact same decade, rock 'n roll higher level aided by the substitution of solidbody electrics over upright acoustic basses.

Nevertheless upright bass is exactly where this story begins, and simply due to the fact electric guitar has a deep history, therefore too does the top ol’ “double bass.” Basically, the bass may be the biggest and lowest-tuned tool in violin family members – therefore certainly one of its common nicknames: the “bull fiddle.” European precursors, for instance the bass lute, apparently trace returning to the 1500s and across following two centuries its use became created in typical symphony orchestras. Bigger definitely, obviously, than violins if not cellos, basses had been never without volume when played in string ensembles. Although roaring ’20s jazz age instantly discovered all of them competing with banjos, brass and reed horn areas, pianos, and drums.

If just being audible was tough, lugging around a bass ended up being even more of challenging. Indeed, it has always been a hassle for bass people traveling because of their instrument’s behemoth dimensions. Also their particular insider nickname amongst artists – the “doghouse” bass – proposes the instrument’s bulk. The greatest hassle was that bassists sporadically had to travel solo making use of their bass filling the rest of one's own vehicle. It had been lonely, high priced, and probably generated weary bassists getting divided from their bandmates on road trips. The thing that was required was a more compact bass – one that would fit alongside another instruments in truck/van.

Therefore, by the mid ’30s, a few established drum firms – Lyon & Healy, Vega, Dobro, Gibson, Rickenbacker, and Regal – began selling instead experimental electric basses that have been remarkably less cumbersome than a typical double bass. But they were still all really tall, unfretted, upright devices held within the standard vertical place. The radical design breakthrough that would influence the field of songs ended up being the advertising of an electric powered bass electric guitar – a tight, fretted tool one could hold and play horizontally. Which was evidently attained very first not by the Fender business, but by a musician/instructor/basement tinkerer named Paul H. Tutmarc, a pioneer in electric pickup design who marketed a line of electric lap steel guitars under the Audiovox brand out from the unlikely town of Seattle.

My curiosity about tracking down this tale started 20-some years ago whenever I overheard a few stray comments from other people flatly declaring the electric guitar was “invented” in Seattle.
Oh, really!?

As students of regional record, I was intrigued by the hearsay but wrote them off as only hearsay because nobody did actually have details to support all of them. For quite some time it all felt merely another metropolitan legend – albeit a fantastic one. But it didn’t appear possible something since significant whilst the electric guitar might have gotten its come from Seattle, or that most that history had (since it seemed) already been utterly lost.

And, if the tale was real, among the region’s history or history museums might have proudly featured a permanent exhibit. And undoubtedly, one of fine guitar record publications will have reported the story. You’d believe the city’s chamber of trade would have pushed historic-site bus trips, the parks department will have erected a bronze statue in a park somewhere, the mayor might even have proclaimed a city-wide vacation, plus the neighborhood music community/industry would toss an important yearly guitar event to mark the big event. You’d think…

But there is no event. No statue. No tour. No vacation. And understandably so, considering the fact that there additionally seemed to be no solid research to confirm any single thread of the improbably high tale. Hence for years this was all simply an appealing rumor if you ask me. Which until around ’83, when I lucked into my first particular clue: a musician buddy claimed that about 15 years prior he possessed an old Seattle-made amp, but that their mommy had thrown it after he left home. You’re joking! You mean there was an early local amp company, too? Did he recall some other details – like manufacturer? Yes. It had been an Audiovox.