Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I saw Roy orbison's bassist with a rickenbacker 4000----very cool single pickup model. maybe mccartney was inspired or enjoyed the bass tones of this guy when he was on tour with roy 4 months earlier

Wasn't that The Ed Sullivan Show? I've just recently seen that pic.

yea...Doing "Pretty woman"

I saw that in Lima Perú and posted about it and found out it had also been posted 2 years earlier than that, hahah!

I think it was a 4001 mapleglo. There was a lot of discussion about it

"maybe mccartney was inspired or enjoyed the bass tones of this guy when he was on tour with roy 4 months earlier"

If he was so "inspired" why didn't he accept the bass the first time it was presented to him?

because he figured he was involved with the selmer and hofner deal epstein had set-up. he then accepted it later because he knew that he didnt have to use it live and he could use it in the studio to get a better bass sound and still fufill his agreement with selmer

does anyone have a picture from the Orbison session?

I took some stills from the mpeg I have of the video.
The video has bad quality, I had to cut down the quality of the pictures to make them under 36kb. I also edited the color, brightness and contrast to make them look as good as possible.

Enjoy, these are pretty much the only angles you seen in the video.







Just wondering, why would he have 4 knobs on it if the bass only has one pickup? From what I can see there seems to be one in the neck position and it also looks like he's covering a horseshoe with his picking hand.
Or do I have the wrong performance?

It's a 4001, I've seen the video, 4000's had the horseshoe pickup, not a neck pickup. A 4001 was a 4000 with an added neck pickup for more bottom. He is covering the horseshoe with his hand and is probably thinking I wish this damn thing wasn't in my way, haha!

then i must have seen a different performance. im absolutley sure that he was playing a 4000. Maybe im going nuts

I don't know this one is fairly common, remember I saw it in Lima Peru?

Look closely and you'll see the trademarked Rick tri-angle fret markers. This must of had binding also.

Yeah it's an old mapleglo 4001 I saw the whole video twice in Lima Perú. That song was a huge hit in early 1964, remember it well so it has to be a 64 or earlier.

Bob wrote:
"He is covering the horseshoe with his hand and is probably thinking I wish this damn thing wasn't in my way, haha! "

Hope you were joking Bob, the horseshoe pickup on my '59 4000 just kicks ***...!!!