Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Fripp also turned down Bryan Ferry...
Maybe they wanted a bass playing singer like they always had in the seventies. On the other hand, Fripp could have taught Elton to play bass!;)

It's weird, though, that to this day Elton maintains his goal was never to be a performer, only a writer. Yet he was auditioning for performance gigs. The part that makes sense is that he started performing his own songs because no one else wanted to do them.

underrated bassist; i don't know who played bass on the bloody tourist album of 10cc but they did a fine job i.m.o.

Maybe it's just me, but could you stop shouting your name Lonnie? It's not a big deal, and if you think I'm out of place, I apologize.

Just thought it was worth a shot.

no intentions of shouting, just use to using caps at work (civil/mechanical drafter)at any rate i'm not sure how to change it.

It looks like you can't change it..My bad.

Ronn: Yes, Glass Onion was on there, enjoyed it! Nice pic of Peter Noone! I'm hoping to get into playing in a band again. My old friends live too far away, so I'm looking to start fresh.

Lonnie, I think it was Graham Gouldman who played bass on 10CC's Bloody Tourists. It could be that Rick Fenn played some bass too, this damn cd versions doesn't have any muso credits.

Gouldman's primarly instrument was the bass with the original line up of 10CC (Gouldman, Stewart, Godley, Creme) but when they split the remaining duo of Gouldman and Stewart drafted in auxiliary musicians like Rick Fenn and he played some bass at least live.

Gouldman used to play a Jetglo 4001.

Gouldman wrote a LOT of great songs, "For Your Love" and "Heart Full of Soul" by The Yardbirds to name a couple.

Ronn: Those two songs were the first songs my first band learned in 1965! We had two guys with Sears Silvertone (Danelectro) amp-in-the-case guitars, me with my Sears (Kay) Les Paul style bass and a drummer who had a bass drum and marching snare borrowed from our high school until his dad bought him a kit. The neighborhood kids used to come and sit at the top of the basement steps and scream for us. When was the last time that happened to any of us? Unfortunately I have no tapes or pictures of that band (The Sting Rays). It was 41 years ago today ...

Cool! And The Eggmen still play them today.

Off the subject but my first band around 66,67 had two twin twelve Silvertone guitar amps for the whole line up. 2 guitars, bass and two mics. I had a no name bass (Howard?) I had payed 25.00 second hand from a friend's older brother, did Midnight Hour of course, Gloria, Expressway to Your Heart etc. some country including Abilene, the band was actually pretty good, we didn't overdrive the amps except unless I played loud and modulated whatever else was in my amp.

Dave, did your old Sears/Kay look like this one?



I have one but the headstock broke off and I did a lousy glue repair on it 30 years ago when I got it for free. Great sounding pickup on it though. Frets were off it when I got it and with Black Diamond nylon-coated strings it sounds vintage fretless. Action is lousy though. But it is fun to beat on, and I like the checkered binding.

John: My bass was the same shape but had two pickups and a swivel pickup selector on the bottom horn. 30" scale. I've seen the single PUPS like yours on the Bay, but I've never seen a two-PUP version like the one I had. My mom bought it for me as a surprise just after my 16th birthday. I used it for about year before I traded it for a Gagliano solid-body Fender-style 32" scale bass that had Hofner pickups and electronics, including the three slide switches and two knobs of the Beatle bass. Hofner made one under their own brand name as well. I've sen the Hofner version online, but never the Gagliano. It wasn't a bad little bass, but I stopped using it in 1967 when I bought a '59 P bass neck on a custom-made body. That was my main bass till I got a '72 4001 Jetglo in 1973.

My candidate for a very underrated bassist is Andrew Bodnar of the Rumour, a Music Man & Fender Precision player. Not only did he lay down some great stuff backing Graham Parker (e.g., "Don't Ask Me Questions"), but he was responsible for one of the greatest (IMHO) bass performances ever: Elvis Costello's "Watching the Detectives."

The song was recorded before the Thomases (Pete & Bruce) joined Elvis, and had Bodnar on bass and Steve Goulding from the Rumour on drums, along with Steve Nieve on keyboards. Hearing the bass in that song in 1977 led me to explore New Wave and Punk music.

Over the years I'd always chalked it up as an(other) outstanding Bruce Thomas performance, before finding out many years after the fact that it wasn't even him, but another bass player I greatly admired.