History Of The Bass Guitar 1950-1960s
It didn’t take long for the electric version of the old double bass to catch on. By 1953 musicians throughout the country were switching from their heavy, stand-up equivalents to the ease and comfort of the electric. The most famous of these musicians was the first bassist to ever go on tour with the electric, Monk Montgomery. Montgomery toured with Lionel Hampton’s Big Band Orchestra and through the early 1950’s the P-Bass was popular with most jazz, orchestra, and rhythm and blues bands. This led to one of the most significant turning points in the history of the electric bass. In 1953, the Gibson Guitar Corporation, founded by Orville Gibson and headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, released the EB-1 Bass. Many considered the Gibson more comfortable to play and found that it provided a better sound quality due to the use of a dual-coil humbucking pickup mounted at the base of the neck (Fender’s pickups were mounted directly between the base of the neck and the top of the bridge, making it more uncomfortable to play).
The materialization of Gibson in the electric bass market provided some competition and, being headquartered in Nashville, also allowed the popularity of the electric bass to move into such genres as country and rock and roll. It was, arguably, Bill Black’s adoption of the Fender P-Bass in 1957 which led to the biggest marketing push for the electric bass ever. Black was the bassist for the most popular performer, perhaps of all time, Elvis Presley. Soon after, companies such as Kay, Rickenbacker, and Hofner, began producing their own models of the electric bass. The emergence of the rock era took the low-end, rhythm axe to new heights.
By 1960, companies weren’t just producing bass guitars, they were producing bass guitars catered to specific music genres. In 1960, Fender released the first “Jazz Bass,” also known as the J-Bass. It was intended to accompany the Fender Jazzmaster electric guitar. The Jazz bass featured a narrower nut, making it easier to play than its predecessor, the Precision. The earliest version of the J-Bass featured a single control for the volume as well as a single control for the tone. This was known as the “stacked” pickup and, at times, made certain notes overpowering. This led to the configuration of the multiple volume controls; a volume control for each pickup and a single, passive, tone control. The popularity of the Fender bass at the time, and its early dominance of the market, led to the characterization of the two separate pickup styles being referred to simply as “P-pickups” or “J-pickups.”During this era, Fender also began production on the “Mustang” bass. It was introduced in 1966 and was a 30” scale-length bass, similar to the size of Tutmarc’s original 30 ½” electronic bass fiddle. Its predecessors, the P- and J-basses were both 34” basses. The Mustang gained increasing popularity, especially in the British rock movement, as it was used by Alan Lancaster of The Status Quo, Wally Waller of The Pretty Things, and Bill Wyman of The Rolling Stones. Its popularity was not unknown in the States either as it was also used by Tina Weymouth of The Talking Heads and Carl Wilson of The Beach Boys. Its shorter length made it more comfortable for bassists who had originally learned to play a standard six-string guitar.
