Chris told me last night during dinner that it was totally untrue that he ever ran his RM1999 with only the neck pickup. In fact, he said he always intentionally ran the bass in stereo, and ran the neck pickup through the fuzz box, the bridge pickup into his flanger/octavia box, and both through tremelo. He said he always ran the bridge pickup wide open and then just blended as much or as little neck pickup in as he needed for balance. He also said the bass neck break was not ever repaired until the 1990s. Sam Lee in Soho did not repair it in a "first early repair" in the late-60s like had earlier been surmised. He acknowledged that it was repaired in the later 1990s, as John had said, via Richard Davis - who had been caring for the bass since the mid-1970s.
When I asked him how he played it like that, he said that it was only loose and "flopped around" at the break when the strings were being changed. After the new strings went on and he tightened them up, the neck press-fitted back down and it was fine again until the next time that the strings needed changing.
Wow - I did not expect THAT answer
But he said he clearly remembers that the repair was not done until after the CS signature model came out.
He also said that if the bridge pickup was disconnected when RIC got the bass, it was only because Richard Davis most likely disconnected it as part of his work on the bass just before sending it to RIC in the 1990s. He was also quite adamant that the fretboard was never replaced. His words: "well if it had ever been replaced, you'd think I would have noticed, do you not, and I never did, I mean, no one ever told me that it was being replaced, and it always looked that same way afterwards as it did before, except for wear marks in the wood itself between the frets from the round-wound strings all those years."
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and sit in with the band whenever you can, to keep your chops up!
