The Bastard Instrument: A Cultural History of the Electric Bass

When I became the editor of Bass Player in 1989, I knew it would be important to cover the history of the bass in the magazine. We started in our first issue, Spring ’90, with a photo essay titled “The Fender Precision: 1952–1964” by the noted Fender historian Richard R. Smith. Many more historical articles followed, including a column series I wrote that became the genesis for my book How the Fender Bass Changed the World [Backbeat Books, 2001]. In the years since then, many more historical articles and books about the bass have appeared, and I recently received a copy of one of the most significant: The Bastard Instrument: A Cultural History of the Electric Bassby Brian F. Wright (U. of Michigan Press, 2024).

Wright is an associate professor of music at the University of North Texas, and his book is the culmination of 12 years of deep research. He begins with a look at some of the early attempts to create an amplified bass instrument, including the Vivi-Tone V-1, the Electro Bass Viol, and Paul Tutmarc’s Audiovox #736, the first electric bass guitar. Wright includes a photo of the Tutmarc family band with Paul’s wife, Lorraine, playing the Audiovox bass. 

The story really takes off, of course, when Leo Fender introduces the Precision Bass in late 1951. Wright has limited his study to “the electric bass’s first two decades”—the Fifties and Sixties—and the depth of his research is impressive. Because he is an academic musicologist, there is sometimes an overwhelming amount of detail and the writing can seem a bit stiff, but these are minor flaws in a truly important work. I thought I knew a fair amount about the history of the electric bass — but I learned a lot.

In the Fifties, the P-Bass was seen as an oddity by most musicians, including upright bass players. Acceptance came slowly and often for practical reasons. Leo Fender wanted to “free the bass player from the big doghouse,” and the portability of his new instrument was indeed a key factor. Even so, it was seen as a “bastard instrument,” as one of its first adopters, Monk Montgomery, repeatedly characterized it. Wright has dug deep not only into the work of Monk Montgomery but many other early P-Bass players, including bassists in Western swing, Texas shuffle, and conjunto groups, as well as the bands led by Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, and others — even Liberace. Wright seems to have tracked down virtually every recording, movie clip, and concert review featuring these early adopters, and it’s an engaging narrative.

After a thoughtful analysis on the importance of pick-style players in getting acceptance for the electric bass in recording studios, especially with “tic-tac” in Nashville, Wright makes a strong case for the influence of amateur musicians — “the teenage garage band revolution,” as he calls it — for increased acceptance of the electric bass. It was loud, it was fun to play, and it was easy to move. With the success of “Walk, Don’t Run” by the Ventures in 1960, a new era was dawning and the acceptance of the electric bass in popular music took off.

 A quick look at early adopters in England, including Jet Harris (who played a Fender Bass VI on his recording of “Besame Mucho”) leads to Wrght’s examination of the Sixties, beginning with studio musicians. He starts with the L.A. scene, featuring the great Carol Kaye, as well as Ray Pohlman, Larry Knechtel, Joe Osborn, and others. Up next is Detroit and James Jamerson. Wright correctly cites Jamerson’s “inventive musicality and idiosyncratic technique” as a crucial component of the Motown sound and states that Jamerson developed a “unique style that would go on to be widely influential.” Indeed. Curiously, there is no mention in the text of the book Standing in the Shadows of Motown by Dr. Licks (Allan Slutsky), although it is in the footnotes. (He does mention the 2002 documentary film of the same name.) Wright then travels to Memphis, the home of Stax Records, and Lewie Steinberg, the oft-forgotten first bassist in Booker T. & the MGs, as well as his successor, Duck Dunn. Again, Wright’s analysis is on target; he says Duck’s “technical approach may be less virtuosic than some other session bassists in this era [but] was nonetheless innovative and influential.” The next section of the chapter covers the Muscle Shoals scene, beginning with Norbert Putnam and moving on to David Hood, Tommy Cogbill (“Funky Broadway”!), and Jerry Jemmott, whose work with Aretha Franklin bridged the Muscle Shoals and New York studios. The last section of the chapter is a look at that complicated New York scene. His main sources are articles by Dan Forte in Guitar Player and Chris Jisi in Bass Player, plus an extensive interview with Chuck Rainey, who talks about the difficulty of breaking into the New York studios in the early Sixties and how his work with King Curtis eventually led to dozens of first-call sessions with artists as diverse as Louis Armstrong, the Rascals, Quincy Jones, and (especially) Aretha. Wright concludes the chapter by stating, “Through their work on thousands of records throughout the Sixties, session musicians firmly established the electric bass as an essential component of modern popular music.”

He then jumps across the pond for a look at the British scene, focusing on three bassists from famous bands: Paul McCartney, Bill Wyman, and John Entwistle. He traces McCartney’s well-known story from the Quarrymen through the early Beatles and up to Sgt. Pepper. There is a good analysis of how Paul drew on, and expanded, ideas from both Dunn and Jamerson in his work. Although there is no mention of Brian Wilson’s influence, Wright does say that, on Sgt. Pepper, “McCartney is extremely thoughtful about his note choices, as he crafts interesting and compelling bass lines by eschewing traditional root notes in favor of other chord tones or notes that are outside the chord altogether.” (As Paul told Tony Bacon in a 1995 Bass Player interview, “Jamerson and later Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys were my two biggest influences: James because he was so good and melodic, and Brian because he went to very unusual places.”)

Turning to Bill Wyman, Wright says that his “restrained approach was an essential element of the Stones’ initial R&B sound.” He praises Wyman’s “simplicity and precision” and says that “the most distinctive component of his style was pioneering use of a fretless electric bass.” The fretless in question was a cheap Dallas Tuxedo instrument with fretwork so bad that it inspired Wyman to pull off the frets. He was pleased with the upright-like tone of the altered instrument, so he just kept playing it that way. Wyman used it on some of the Stones’ early recordings, but Wright doesn’t mention the one place where you can really hear its fretless qualities: the slides on “Paint It, Black.” Overall, Wright is very sympathetic to Wyman’s less-is-more approach and praises it as “an homage to the blues musicians that he and the Stones loved and, to be fair, never stopped promoting.” (It is perhaps unfair of me to point out that Keith Richards played bass on some of the Stones best-known studio recordings from the Sixties, such as “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” “Sympathy for the Devil,” and “Street Fighting Man.”)

And finally—John Entwistle, proclaimed by Wright to be “Rock’s First Bass Virtuoso.” Well … maybe. He makes a strong case for this assertion, citing Entwistle’s “dazzling displays of musicianship” and stating that “his immense, virtuosic technical abilities [turned] the electric bass into a lead instrument.” Anyone who has tried to learn Entwistle’s bass lines will agree about his technical skill, but I’m not sure that he “ultimately most shaped the future of bass playing.” For one thing, the Ox’s playing was so specific to the Who. Because of Townshend’s unique guitar style, he was free to explore in a way that other bassists couldn’t. And explore he did. But it’s hard to see how this had much influence on other bassists at the time, aside from the fact that many of us discovered the treble knob on our amp. Yes, Entwistle played a crucial role in the development of Rotosound roundwound strings, and that was a major change to bass tone that did affect many players. (I can still remember putting my first set on my EB-3. OMG!) I think Entwistle was one of the important virtuosos from that era who shaped the future of bass playing. At the end of the chapter, Wright says Entwistle was “followed shortly” by Jack Bruce, John Paul Jones, and Chris Squire, and a case could be made for all three of them as being as virtuosic and perhaps more influential on other bassists than Entwistle.

The vital role played by the electric bass in the birth of funk is Wright’s next subject, and he presents a detailed chronicle of the bass players in James Brown’s bands in the Sixties and early Seventies. It’s an impressive lineup, starting with Bernard Odum and moving through Hubert Perry, Sam Thomas, David “Hooks” Williams, Tim Drummond, Charles Sherrell, Bootsy Collins, and Fred Thomas — all of whom knew how to hit “the One” in Brown’s rhythm-driven style. Drummond’s story is particularly interesting, as a white man in a Black band that became one of the most important musical voices of the Black Power movement. As Wright notes, for James Brown it was all about the music: He stuck with Drummond despite criticism from the Black community, stating, “He was a playing cat … I never could get enough of Tim.” Unfortunately, illness ended Drummond’s tenure with the band, but he left his mark on tunes like “I Can’t Stand Myself (When You Touch Me)” and “Licking Stick — Licking Stick.”

Rock and funk come together in the book’s penultimate chapter, “The Lead Instrument,” as Wright focuses on the work of Jack Casady in the Jefferson Airplane and Larry Graham in Sly & the Family Stone, both from the San Francisco Bay Area. He cites Casady’s “inventive approach to electric bass playing, which by the late Sixties, encapsulated a new emphasis on improvisation and tonal exploration in rock music.” Wright conducted an extensive interview with Casady, who talked about the influence of both James Jamerson and James Brown’s music on his playing, as well as the impact of hearing Jack Bruce when Cream played the Fillmore West. Wright wisely focuses on Casady’s stunning work on the live Jefferson Airplane album Bless Its Pointed Little Head, especially “Somebody to Love.” (His account draws on Jisi’s definitive transcription and analysis from the Holiday 2011 issue of Bass Player.) Surprisingly, perhaps, there is no mention of Hot Tuna, especially the first album (recorded in 1969), which is one of the best places to hear Casady’s great tone and improvisational chops. And, while my admiration for Jack Casady is well known, I’m also surprised that this section mentions Phil Lesh only in a footnote. Given the hundreds of Grateful Dead tribute bands as well as second-generation jam bands like Phish and Widespread Panic, it seems that Phil’s “emphasis on improvisation and tonal exploration in rock music” and its effect on other bassists should have received more credit here.

Wright concludes his look at Sixties innovators with Larry Graham, whose “thumpin’ and pluckin’” style, as Graham called it, inspired a whole school of slapping bass players. As Graham told Tony Green in a 1996 Bass Player interview, he started to play that way when his group lost its drummer: “It was the only way I could get that rhythmic sound.” Sly Stone heard him, was impressed, and hired him for the Family Stone. Graham’s playing quickly became a trademark of the group’s sound, and his “lead bass” concept was further enhanced by effects like the Maestro FZ-1 fuzz pedal. As Wright points out, “Like Jack Casady and Paul McCartney, Graham was always interested in exploring new and unique bass timbres, and he used these effects pedals to give his slap playing an added tonal edge.” Sly’s group, because of both its personnel and rock-plus-funk style, bridged Black and white audiences in a way that hadn’t been done before, with Graham’s bass in the forefront. The song “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin,” Wright says, “solidified Graham’s electric bass as a featured lead instrument.…Through this and other bass lines, Graham fundamentally shaped the direction of electric bass playing for decades to come.” At least for the bass players who use the slapping technique, I would note, if not for everybody.

Wright’s book concludes with his thoughts on the “adjacent possible,” a concept from a book called Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson, a media theorist who writes about science and technology. The essence of this concept is that innovations (like the electric bass) produce “an expanded set of adjacent possibilities” — in this case, a whole new range of musical styles. “In the end,” Wright says, this “fundamentally transformed the sound of popular music.” And, as he adds, what happened in the Fifties and Sixties “is just the beginning of the story.” He follows with a list of notable bass players from succeeding generations that begins (perhaps oddly) with Suzi Quatro and ends with Victor Wooten.

Summing up, Wright says: “Musicians, inventors, engineers, producers, promoters, critics, fans, detractors: All of them, famous or not, had a hand in shaping the instrument’s early history and development. Ultimately, this book is an attempt to highlight the significance of their contributions—to give credit where credit is due. Thanks to their individual and collective efforts, by 1970, the electric bass was no longer a ‘bastard instrument.’”

While I may disagree with Brian Wright about a few matters of opinion or emphasis, I am very grateful for the tremendous job of research and analysis he has done. His book is an absolutely vital piece of bass history — of musical history — and I hope that everyone interested in the history of the electric bass reads it (including the footnotes) and uses its valuable insights to further their appreciation of our instrument.