Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I just saw the PBS American Masters show devoted to Ella Fitzgerald (my God, what a talent, by the way)...there were several scenes of her live with a backup band featuring Joe Pass on guitar...that guy's playing is otherworldly, and I swear he just about NEVER looked at the neck. This isn't magic: it's muscle memory (as Jay points out) brought about by countless hours of practice.

A plus B equals C.

Sean, it depends. I had one set on for quite a while (4 months or so) and then one night I was playing a little more aggressively than usual (go figure!) and one of them peeled off from my thumb wrapping around the neck. But most of the time they are never touched and stay in place just fine. But it takes maybe 5 minutes to put on a new set!

While Mr. Joe Pass was a great guitarist, he was also a Junkie who battled all his life to kick Heroin. This seems to be the downfall of many great artists. Whether it be Junk or Coke or Alcohol, this is part of the on going downfall of so many artists. Take James Taylor for example, what a voice and talk about acoustic guitar playing, would you ever think this man was a Heroin addict? So many of our musical idols are dependents to some form of a crutch.
As Harrison said: "That's The Way It Goes" Etta James and Natalie Cole, female singers who I praise and adore were heavy Coke useres. IMO most all artists of fame have some form of dependency to drugs.

Jeff In the early 70's the set neck basses were the 4000 models or the double necks. I don't know why it was this way, I just followed orders. Mr. Burke gave the orders and we carried them out. The 3000 series of course had bolt on necks, but all single P-up 4000 models had a set/glued in neck. Some of them were routed for 2 pickups by mistake. Mike Rodriques who did the routing on all insrtuments would at many times forget and route a 4000 as if it were a 4001. So there you go, that's all i can tell you.

Dale, I agree with you about Joe Pass, et al. As I said in another thread, artists and musicians, being potentially more sensitive than the average member of society and (if they choose to) grappling with the thornier issues of human existence, are the 'canaries in the coal mine', and as such are susceptible to the kind of perils you describe.

People who aren't feeling pain don't require pain killers...

A lot of those jazz players also kicked it early in their careers such as Coltrane who stopped around 1958, Ray charles who stopped in 65, Jackie McClean who is a music professor and has been clean for years etc. A successfull fuctioning junkie is the exception not the rule and they usually function (at about 25% of their talent) with the help of many enablers including hired babysitters. James Taylor has been clean for a long time too.
I got a Joe Pass album with NHOP in which NHOP blows away Joe in many places on the album, NHOP just passed away, was an unbelievable upright player, was doing Jaco on an upright before Jaco including overtones.

Dane, VERY well put. Musicians and artists tend to be more sensitive than most, and either reaching for something they can't achieve normally, or looking for something to help ease the pain / bring back the euphoria.

My theory why musicians do drugs ... boredom ... playing some God awful song over and over again ... there are certain songs that I can't even bring myself to listen to let alone play ... the music is always better without the drugs ...

I think it's a little more prosiac than the romantic notion of the tortured artist syndrome, that's a bunch of BS and an excuse. You're in bars 5 nights a week, bored like Jeff says, you start to get hammered on Budweiser, get bored with that, then the drugs start, very simple, some stop, some don't. 10% of the population is prone to addiction.
I know some very good but insensitive musicians, haha!

That's true, Bob...generalizations always turn out not to describe reality fully. The music may most often be better without the drugs, but not always...and in some cases, whether the rest of us understand it or not, the music may be impossible without the drugs.

or you could subscribe to the "addictive personality syndrome", which is NOT in the DSM IV but has been anecdotally described in the literature.

Drugs are drugs and music is music ... they are not linked ...

Oh, contraire...they're absolutely not the same thing, but not 'linked'? Hmmmmm...that's a bit subjective.

When I stopped doing certain things 21 years ago, my playing became about 10 times better, my mind opened to new types of music, my sound got much better, everything got better, I believe if I hadn't have wasted so much time doing those certain things when I was in the prime of my rock n roll life, it would have been very different. But I also do believe as Dane has stated certain music would not be here if it weren't for drugs, such as Roland Kirk's "The Inflated tear" which he wrote while tripping which I believe to be his best album out of many, but I also believe again that that is the exception rather than the rule and who knows he was so talented it might have been even better if he were straight when he wrote it. Sgt. Pepper?

If it weren't for drugs a lot of great musicians would have longer and more productive careers ...