Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

- is very high on my list of great players with outstanding Ric bass sound. I was just wondering why his name is never mentioned here?

Extremely high on my list too! His sound is the Holy Grail to me.

Excepting Prologue his sound was absolutely amazing.

Strangely enough, my favorite sound was on Song for all Seasons, but by that time the Great White was arguably heavily modified.

He has been mentioned at times. I believe Jeff Scott, Bob Moretti and myself have made some comments!

You know, I was going to mention him, but thought nobody would have heard of him.

His sound was the sound that made me go out and find what guitar made that noise, and then go get one.

I never really liked the band, but I'd listen to them just to hear him play and let that sound make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

Jon is my #1 bassist, well, besides Squire!

Ilan,
Can you send me a high res version of that Camp photo?

Renaissance is my all time favorite band.

Ilan, if possible, I'd also like a copy of that photo. That was obviously before the black headstock mod.

I bought only two Rennaissance albums, Prologue and the live concert at Carnegie Hall. I tried to iTune my favorite track from that album, Ocean Gypsy, and it isn't available. The studio version is available, but much of the great parts that Camp played on the concert version was done with an orchestra or synsths on the studio. He really knew how to make a bass guitar into a lead instrument. Just marvelous.

I hate to admit this, but I've never heard Jon Camp.

You don't know what you're missing Scott!

Ocean Gypsy is one of my favorite tunes, I learned that bass part in '78. Actually I have many favorite Renaissance songs, that band wrote just absolutely fantastic music.

Jon Camp's playing was very instrumental in my bass playing upbringing. Those that heard some of my playing at Confluence II has a small idea of it.

Scott,
Start with:
Prologue, then Ashes Are Burning, after those get Turn Of The Cards, Scheherezade & Other Stories, Novella, Song For All Seasons, and the last one that I liked, Azure D'Or. Then of course are the various live albums like the two King Biscuit CDs and of course, Live At Carnegie Hall. You can't go wrong with any of them really.

I saw Renaissance in the round in a small theatre called The Front Row in Cleveland back in '79 when they were touring after Azure D'Or came out. After the show Annie and Jon came out and my friend and I were honored with talking with them for a long time. I almost had the chance to play The Great White before the show, but I would have prefered to do so after the show, for whatever reason at the time. Alas, it was not to be.

Between Annie Haslam's voice and John's bass playing, I don't know which stood out more in any Renaissance song. I've seen them a few times here in Jersey, in fact Annie has done a few solo dates here also. I've heard she is singing in a church choir in Pennsylvania somewhere.

On Ocean Gypsy Annie and Jon are basically doing a duet, as both are integral to the melody of the song.

Scott,
Get Sheherezade first, the whole album is a masterpiece. Perhaps that is why it was one of Mobile Fidelity's choices for a half speed mastered super high quality vinyl pressing!

Glad to see so many here like him! I had Scheherazade (in vinyl, of course) in high school, that was my first exposure to them. Never saw them perform although they did come to Israel somewhere in the 80's.

The picture: I'm afraid the one I found on the web isn't much larger than the one I posted... link: http://www.dryden29.net/music/concerts/032378/ren_032378_4.jpg

I found an interview with him from '97, where he spoke about the Ric and about Squire's influence:

"Your bass playing has always been melodic and exciting. Who were your influences and how do you think you came to develop this style of playing?

In one word Chris Squire. What happened was that I had just got married and believe it or not on our honeymoon we happened to drop into a pub where Yes were playing. I saw Chris and I thought, "Wow!" I was a guitar player first of all and I think that's probably where the melodic style came from. It was kind of a transitional period; there was a band that I wanted to play with locally when I lived in London and they wanted a bass player. I was playing guitar at the time. I remember going up Shaftsbury Avenue, which is like the London mecca of music stores, in a taxi cab. I bought a Gibson EBO 3 and a gigantic Vox amplifier and put it all in the cab. A little known fact is that Renaissance toured with Return To Forever for nearly a month and what we used to do is split the headlining each night. I spent a lot of time with Stanley Clarke and he can knock spots off me, but once we were sitting on a plane and he said to me, "I might be faster that you, but I could never be as melodic as you." I thought that was really nice and we had a wonderful time together.

<snip>

You were one of the pioneers of the Rickenbacker Bass sound. What drew you to using this particular bass guitar?

Well we go back to Chris Squire. He was the man. I just saw that guitar and heard the sound. For me the Rickenbacker was the best cross until I started playing Vigier, between the sound of a guitar and a bass. It had the depth but it also had a very strong high end which really appealed to me because I wanted to actually cross that line. I wanted a guitar/bass.

In the late 70s and early 80s you started to use other basses. Did you want a different sound or had the Rickenbacker become limiting?

I never found the Rickenbacker limiting although my ones had a tremendous amount of work done on them. I think the reason that I changed basses and went to a company called Vigier was because Nicky Beggs who was in Kajagoogoo and is a good friend of mine said, "You want to try one of these pal." I did an basically when I started using Vigiers they were right for the way Renaissance were moving musically. Vigier have an onboard computer; you can adapt all the sounds as and when you want and while you're playing. I would never go back to playing anything else apart from Vigiers now."

The whole interview: http://www.nlightsweb.com/lib/reviews/camp97.htm

About the Vigier... Another "holy grail of Ric tone" player - Roger Glover - is also a long-time user of Vigiers. I've never played one. Why does it appeal to former Ric players to the point where they convert?

Weird looking guitars/basses. Interesting that all of their instruments have a zero fret.