In 1968, a 16-year-old musician named Anthony Jackson had an idea. Why not expand the range of his bass guitar, he thought, by adding two strings: a low B and a high C? He called the concept a contrabass guitar and began to look for a builder who could make such an instrument. Late in 1974, he found one: Carl Thompson, a New York City luthier who had already done one “special project” by building a piccolo bass for Stanley Clarke. Thompson thought the contrabass guitar was a strange idea, but he went ahead and built the first 6-string bass tuned BEADGC. Jackson wasn’t happy with some aspects of the instrument, so he asked Thompson to try again. The second attempt never made it past the test bass stage, and Jackson moved on to another New York City builder, Ken Smith. Smith built two contrabasses for Jackson. The woodwork was done in Smith’s Brooklyn shop by a young luthier named Vinny Fodera. While working there one day, Vinny answered a knock at the door and met Joey Lauricel