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        Johnny's Alembic Mark King signature model was acquired second hand when an unfortunate Mark King fan needed quick cash to help with a messy divorce settlement. Unlucky for him but lucky for Johnny! It has quite the most even sounding notes with no dead spots and some very intricate tone circuitry with parametric equalisation. "Impossible to get a bad sound out of it" says Johnny. Alembic were probably the first company to start building high end quality basses in the states. Incredible woods, top class metal fittings (brass, gold plated) and an ebony fret board. "The body is huge and won't stand up on it's tail but I love it".

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Precision's younger brother is the Jazz Bass - named because it has a slimmer neck and "jazz" players could play fast runs on it more easily. In reality, jazz players never touched it but everyone else did. It quickly became the bench mark for bass players everywhere. The jazz has 2 single coil pickups giving it a greater variety of sounds than the Precision and the body has an offset appearance. Johnny's bass was painted in purple Dulux emulsion when he bought it 11 years ago and had it refinished in white. He says, "This is the Holy Grail of basses. This era is the most sought after and nowadays few early 60's basses come up for sale. It is more bassy, more trebly than the Pre but not as powerful overall, oddly enough. I leave the metal covers on cos it looks cool and frustrates other bass players".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Johnny's Rickenbacker 4003s was ordered direct from the States 12 years ago. The 4003S model is the upgraded version of the 4001s bass designed in America in the 60's for export. Paul McCartney and Chris Squire of Yes used this simpler, Mono model with dot markers on the neck. The standard 4001 was stereo and had large pearloid fin markers. Johnny prefers playing Rickenbackers with a plectrum (pick) and says they sound best when played "hard". Most Rick players remove the metal pick-up cover but Johnny leaves his on as before, mainly to dissuade other bassists borrowing it and it's a good right hand rest place to pick near the neck for warmer sounds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Johnny's 1988 Warwick Thumb 5 string was his first venture into "top end of the market" basses. It replaced a 70's Fender fretless that he had been using and once played there was no going back to inferior instruments. This model was part designed by Cream's Jack Bruce and is made of exotic Wenge and Paduak woods with an ebony fretboard (without any frets, of course!) and EMG active pickups. It is a stunning looking guitar which gets regularly polished with special cream and has a fantastic singing tone.

Johnny's 1962 Fender Precision Bass used to belong to the Who's John Entwhistle and was acquired in 2003. It shows some signs of wear but no abuse and is totally original. The Precision bass was originally designed in 1951 and was slightly altered over years until this look was settled on. Johnny says "it is a solid guitar, both in make and in sound. One "split" hum-bucker pickup gives it a "middle" sound, not too bassy or trebly, but it is extremely powerful and grinds away when you play it hard. You can imagine "My Generation" being blasted out on it. It has one sound but it's a good one".

 The Precision Bass was the first production solid-bodied electric bass guitar. Guitars of this age were made of wood probably cut back in the 1920's or 30's. This would be left to dry out for years before being used so that they are very stable. Few guitars of today are so lucky!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Sei (rhymes with "hay") bass was made by Martin Petersen in London in  1990 and was specially made for Johnny. The neck was slimmed and the lower cut out was enlarged to Johnny's specifications. It has LED's on the neck for fret markers and the neck has his signature engraved on. It is serial number 13 and the wood was chosen at Martin's home where he used to build his basses. Now he has moved to The Gallery in North London where he continues to build fabulous instruments. This 6-string bass is headless, a style that went out of fashion aesthetically but Johnny says it is the best balanced bass he has and plays very easily. It is a 36" scale which is very long which improves the low notes and has the fabulous Shack tone circuitry to give a complete range of sounds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Only a very sick mind would choose the Rickenbacker 8 string bass for anything other than hand to hand combat. As a musical instrument it is a non-starter. It is strung with 4 pairs of strings in octaves but Johnny discovered that bad design meant that each pair had too much separation and proved difficult to finger. The thinner, higher octave string in each pair was above the lower and that meant that Johnny's left hand fingers could not hold them both down. In frustration he took it to luthier (guitar builder/repairer) Ray Cooper in Hemel who reversed the pairings and re-cut the bridge to close the gaps. Finally it was playable. It sounds like a great rhythm guitar. Johnny uses a plectrum only on this bass and it is used occasionally for mirth value as much as musical.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Acquired second hand from a pawn shop for £200 in 1988, this is a dream come true. Johnny knew it was worth twice that even then and now it will be worth over a grand. It has a maple capped fingerboard which gives a very bright sound and he named it "Mr Slappy". Marcus Miller uses a similar Jazz from about the same time although Johnny has made two changes. It now sports a Badass Bridge which increases sustain and helps intonation, and a brass nut. The original nut had come off and had been glued back onto the fingerboard. This made it unplayable at first but now the bass sounds "killer".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brother to Johnny's 5-string fretless is the Warwick Thumb 6-string. Although it is made from the same wood, Wenge, and is only a year younger, it has a duller finish than the shiny fretless. This particular guitar was used in a review in Guitarist magazine in 1989 and Johnny bought it shortly afterwards. It has an extremely even sound throughout it's entire range and can be used in many different musical settings. It does not have a lot of bottom end, strangely, but has a lovely middle tone and Johnny finds he has to dial in bassier frequencies from the amp. Still, it cuts through any situation and is probably the heaviest bass in the world! This easily dissuades would be musicians picking it up to "borrow". Johnny paid £1495 for this "through neck" version and it easily retails at almost twice that now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Johnny's love affair with Rickenbackers continues with this 4003 model which is the stereo version of the 4003s as seen above. It has white binding round the body & neck and pearloid fin markers on the fretboard. This model replaced the traditional 4001 version which was used by many players like Geddy Lee (Rush), Roger Glover, Glenn Hughes (Deep Purple) and Bruce Foxton (The Jam). It has a lovely fast neck although limited in it's range of sounds and Johnny always uses a plectrum or pick when playing it. It was bought new about 7 years ago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aah, yes - The Beatle Bass. This is a mid 60's Hofner bass guitar as was used by Paul McCartney throughout the Beatles in the 60's and again in more recent years. It is a very inexpensive, lightweight guitar with an extremely limited, deep bassy sound. The neck is the same thickness all the way along and is short scale which feels unlike any other of Johnny's basses. The body is carved and shaped in the traditional violin making style and the neck is glued, not bolted to the body. This era has binding along the neck which puts it slightly later than Macca's and Luthier Ray Cooper expertly fixed a split on the back. Johnny uses this bass with Wingspan and the value of this bass is now far in excess of it's playing value. Few 60's Hofner's appear for sale now and if they do, they sadly seem to end up in a vault in Japan. Johnny found this guitar one day walking through The Bass Centre and offered to buy it on sight. It had just that hour arrived in the shop and they weren't actually all that keen to sell! It's J's now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another Warwick,  a favourite company of Johnny's and another 6-string bass. The Warwick Streamer has wider string spacing than the Thumb Bass and is a quite different animal entirely. It has a bigger bottom end and a more prominent high end but does not have the same middle sounds. It is a more versatile bass and can be used in active or passive mode. (Johnny never uses passive unless the batteries fail)! It has Bartolini pick-ups like the Thumb VI and is slightly lighter. It was bought 2nd hand from The Bass Centre in the mid 90's and is missing the volume control in the picture - it has since been found.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Johnny's Gibson Thunderbird IV Bass was bought from a small North London shop and had been sitting around unloved for several years. This particular model was extremely badly finished with sharp fret ends and a very high action. Johnny doesn't like a low action but this meant that the neck needed a good adjustment. It proved to have a good bass end and can "growl" when played hard. It is very neck heavy and so doesn't balance well when played on a strap. The Thunderbird is a quirky guitar but has some fairly devout fans like Nikky Sixx of Motley Crue and Martin Turner of Wishbone Ash. This shape is described as a "reverse body" and, like the 6-string guitar version, The Firebird, was more popular than the ordinary shape, known rather bizarrely as "non-reverse"!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This bass was purchased 2nd hand as the ultimate fretless but Johnny prefers the 5-string Warwick. Sadly, this bass is under-used though it is extremely verstile and has the advantage of fret lines to aid playing in tune. Status originally became known for their poly-carbon bodies which were not affected by weather changes in the way wood bodies were. However, they eventually added wood guitars to their range and this is one. The neck is carbon and it has a strong, singing tone on the upper register. Johnny uses this bass with the Firedogs and with the occasional gig with Guitarist/Vocalist J.B. Baptiste.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This Ashbury bass was designed after it was discovered that a string made of silicone and rubber had very pleasing acoustic qualities when plucked - not unlike a double bass. This is the Mark 2 design which was bigger than the little red original and looked far less like a plastic toy! Funnily enough, the original has now been re-marketed. Johnny uses this bass for recording and seldom gigs it. It does sound remarkably like a double bass & is a lot easier to transport.

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Colin" the Double Bass was made in East Germany in the 90's and is not a very prestigous instrument. The finger board is maple when it cries out to be ebony and the body is ply-wood. Nevertheless, it is a real 3/4 scale Double Bass which is the size played by most jazz and pop guys, leaving full size basses to orchestral dudes. Johnny plays this instrument with Rock-a-billy act The Copy Cats and slaps his fingers raw to the strains of Elvis and Buddy Holly. The strings alone are over £100 a set and Johnny has been known to change them as often as every decade, whether they need it or not. It fills the car during transporting and always feed backs if in the same city as the amplifier is and never quite gets loud enough to hear properly. All told, these are the reasons the electric bass was designed in the first place!

 

 

 

 

 

 

A 1958 Fender Precision Bass with gold iodised scratch plate is a bass that Johnny was hunting for since the 80's. Finally one turned up for sale in the States and it was brought over. Sadly, some previous owner had fitted a 5th string which meant boring a hole in the head stock but this will be filled soon. Everything else is stock and this guitar sounds fantastic. Just like the 1962 version mentioned above, it really has only one sound but it is a full tone with a lot of bottom end and a slightly more mellow treble. When turned up (ie always, the way J. plays), it has a saturated, almost overdriven sound. God's Bass!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Music Man Stingray was designed by Leo Fender in the 1970's as the next stage to the Precision bass which he had built some 20 years before. Music Man were bought by Ernie Ball who continued the model and it's this version Johnny owns. It is a bolt on neck, single pick up bass but the 3 band e.q. gives it a wide variety of sounds. The 5th string needs a lighter gauge than Johnny normally uses to project but it has few vices. The tone is fat and big - just like it's owner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fender basses from the 1970's don't seem to have suffered in the same way as their guitar brothers in terms of poor quality. Generally, this era produced some great ones. When Johnny bought this 74 model for £400, it was not one of the better types. The neck was warped but Ray Cooper from Hemel sorted it out and now it is a gem of a bass. It has a noticeably thicker neck than the 50's and 60's models above and less bottom end in it's sound. It has a middle that cuts through and sounds great. You can see a wear mark where the previous owner rested his thumb to play above the pick up cover. Johnny used black nylon strings on this bass for many years before reverting to roundwound.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This Rickenbacker is a special order model based around the 1964 Ricky 4001 but has a left handed neck to mimic Paul McCartney's own bass (a leftie with a right handed neck) which Johnny uses in Wingspan. It has a real Ricky "growl" and a lovely top end and sounds unlike any of his other Ricks'. Funnily enough, it is not known as the McCartney bass as there is another model with some of Paul's unique customisations. Well, Johnny will just have to get that as well! (See below....)

 

 

 

 

 

 

   Yet another Rickenbacker but the special thing about this one is..... it's black! Yes, no other reason except it's black and both Geddy Lee of Rush and Roger Glover of Deep Purple used a black one. It has much more bottom end than the 64 Rick (see above) but lacks the treble. Once again, as with all the Ricks, Johnny mainly uses a plectrum on this guitar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the Rickenbacker that took more than 2 years to get! It's a special order but you have to wait till Rickenbacker have enough orders before they make them. Johnny used more devilish means to get it but still it took contacts scouring the world to find it. It has a matte finish which feels very different, to the normal varnished Rics but the other differences are purely cosmetic. The upper horn has been slightly reshaped and the guitar has a zero fret. The neck is left-handed as the bass, like the 64c Rick mentioned earlier, to mimic Paul McCartney's leftie bass with a rightie neck! This bass has the pickup with the built-in guard in place though McCartney's own bass had this replaced with the more conventional Rickenbacker pickup sometime in the early 70's.