The first fretless... Bill Wyman?

[silky smoove]

I just read on Bill Wyman's Wikipedia page that he's credited as being the inventor of the fretless electric bass. The page says that he defretted one of his early basses and this was the first fretless electric bass guitar.

Is this accurate? I don't have a bias either way as I'm not really a Rolling Stones guy or a fretless guy, its just that its a factoid I've never heard thrown around TB, which is surprising.

[Darkstrike]

Its been discussed in the past, to no concrete answer.

I know he defretted his bass while he was in the band he was in pre-Rolling Stones, The Cliftons, in 1959, as the Wiki says.

But there were other bassists who defretted their basses at the time, no one knows who was first though.

All the can say was he was "one" of the first, and the most well known at that.

[Thornton Davis]

Here's Bill with his first bass. He built it himself in early 1960 and used it during the first couple of years with the Stones before switching to his Framus Star Bass in 1963.

He continued to use his home made bass on many Stone's recordings for many more years cause he said it gave him "the perfect sound."

The neck had been defretted by someone prior to Bill acquiring it, according to Bill.

TD