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Carol Kaye's string changing method !

#241
Silly Rabble. Picks are for kids.

I agree that Carol Kaye is/was an amazing player. I agree that she is/was a nut. I agree that the session players of that era, and even today, are often truly amazing players, and that's why they got the gig, and someone else didn't.

And I agree that this turned out to be an excellent thread.
 
#244
Reading through the diatribe it comes off as if Carol only ever owned one bass at the time.

And that every time she traded it in, the strings that came with a new one just happened to be the perfect strings for all of her needs.......hmmmm.

I'm sure she owned more than one bass at the time..............and with her kind of reputation and contacts at the time there would be plenty of luthiers, techies and savvy people who would have had no problem restringing any of her basses.

If, by admission, there was so much disparity and variation between Fender basses at the time....then just going to a shop and trading it in didn't guarantee she'd get one that sounded good.

She's making more than the president and only owned one bass?............

Maybe everything she says is true about then.............but it comes off a little far-fetched to me....


I guess Paul McCartney and George Harrison didn't string their own instruments either?
 
#245
mellowinman said:
Silly Rabble. Picks are for kids.

I agree that Carol Kaye is/was an amazing player. I agree that she is/was a nut. I agree that the session players of that era, and even today, are often truly amazing players, and that's why they got the gig, and someone else didn't.

And I agree that this turned out to be an excellent thread.
Click to expand...

Carol Kaye threads ALWAYS deliver.
 
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#246
ZenG said:
Reading through the diatribe it comes off as if Carol only ever owned one bass at the time.

And that every time she traded it in, the strings that came with a new one just happened to be the perfect strings for all of her needs.......hmmmm.

I'm sure she owned more than one bass at the time..............and with her kind of reputation and contacts at the time there would be plenty of luthiers, techies and savvy people who would have had no problem restringing any of her basses.

If, by admission, there was so much disparity and variation between Fender basses at the time....then just going to a shop and trading it in didn't guarantee she'd get one that sounded good.

She's making more than the president and only owned one bass?............

Maybe everything she says is true about then.............but it comes off a little far-fetched to me....


I guess Paul McCartney and George Harrison didn't string their own instruments either?
Click to expand...

In the 50's and 60's there weren't a lot of string choices. There weren't a lot of luthiers, or even guitar "techs" everywhere like there are today.

Jamerson supposedly just played one P bass at a time. Same with Joe Osborn's Jazz bass. Both were super-busy session players with one bass. Why would it be questionable that CK would do the same?

And buying a Fender bass way back then pretty much guaranteed the same sound. The truth is there wasn't "so much disparity and variation between Fender basses at the time". They all came with the same flatwound strings, and she mutes heavily anyway. In that sonic territory, a P bass....is a P bass....is a P bass.

What do McCartney and Harrison have to do with anything?
 
#247
Iridescentone said:
In the 50's and 60's there weren't a lot of string choices. There weren't a lot of luthiers, or even guitar "techs" everywhere like there are today.

Jamerson supposedly just played one P bass at a time. Same with Joe Osborn's Jazz bass. Both were super-busy session players with one bass. Why would it be questionable that CK would do the same? Why are you "sure she owned more than one bass at the time"?

And buying a Fender bass way back then pretty much guaranteed the same sound. The truth is there wasn't "so much disparity and variation between Fender basses at the time". They all came with the same flatwound strings, and she mutes heavily anyway. In that sonic territory, a P bass....is a P bass....is a P bass.

What do McCartney and Harrison have to do with anything?
Click to expand...

McCartney and Harrison never re-strung anything, because they didn't have to. They never broke a string! It was that clumsy Lennon always bending the crap out of 'em, and he made Cynthia (later Yoko) change all his strings.
 
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#252
ZenG said:
Reading through the diatribe it comes off as if Carol only ever owned one bass at the time.

And that every time she traded it in, the strings that came with a new one just happened to be the perfect strings for all of her needs.......hmmmm.

I'm sure she owned more than one bass at the time..............and with her kind of reputation and contacts at the time there would be plenty of luthiers, techies and savvy people who would have had no problem restringing any of her basses.

If, by admission, there was so much disparity and variation between Fender basses at the time....then just going to a shop and trading it in didn't guarantee she'd get one that sounded good.

She's making more than the president and only owned one bass?............

Maybe everything she says is true about then.............but it comes off a little far-fetched to me....


I guess Paul McCartney and George Harrison didn't string their own instruments either?
Click to expand...
Pro bassists owning only one bass in the 60's was commonplace. Some might have had one as a backup, but owning multiple basses was not real common as it is now, bringing more than one was thought of as an unnecessary distraction to the work at hand in the studio, and there are more studio bassists than Carol who only owned one...Joe Osborn, Duck Dunn and James Jamerson were also single bass owners. To this day, I'm pretty sure that Carol only owns one bass, an Ibanez SRX700. You're applying modern-day standards to the 60's.
 
#256
JimmyM said:
Pro bassists owning only one bass in the 60's was commonplace. Some might have had one as a backup, but owning multiple basses was not real common as it is now, bringing more than one was thought of as an unnecessary distraction to the work at hand in the studio, and there are more studio bassists than Carol who only owned one...Joe Osborn, Duck Dunn and James Jamerson were also single bass owners. To this day, I'm pretty sure that Carol only owns one bass, an Ibanez SRX700. You're applying modern-day standards to the 60's.
Click to expand...

That last sentence is key to this- there just weren't "guitar stores" all over. Most major music stores had a "combo department" for the "rock 'n' roll" stuff. But they didn't want that noise to interfere with selling a serious instrument or a piano... And guitar techs at every store is laughable. Even now, most stores don't REALLY have competent techs. Back then most stores had no idea how to really service instruments like solid body guitars.
 
#258
MonkeyBass said:
I hear ya. This thread actually isn't too bad but about 2 years ago I got into with a guy who had no idea how compressors worked and as I tried to explain it to him he called me every name under the sun.
Click to expand...

The sins of a single poster shalt ultimately not bother the website.

In other news, speaking of re-stringing, I got a set of La Bella flats brand new. Normally I love La Bella strings, but these were poorly polished. Thanks to that, they were dead sounding and felt horrible. Blech. Love them, just wish there was more consistency.
 
#260
ggvicviper said:
Just saw this quote. The Dano story was in fact for My Generation. I read it in a bass book I have. Funny enough, I think the bass was a J with flats on the recording.
Click to expand...
petrus61 said:
In Bass Culture, the book that features the Ox's bass and guitar collection, he writes that it was indeed a Jazz with Labella's. There's a pic of the jazz with a caption.
Click to expand...

Please see my post from yesterday.....

crucislancer said:
Yup, here is the quote from an interview with Chris Jisi, in 1989 (reprinted in "Bass Heroes")

How did the "My Generation" solo come about?
Originally, we wanted to feature the sound of a Danelectro bass, which had thin strings. We did three takes, all of which were faster, more trebly, and more complex than the final one, and I kept breaking the strings. You Couldn't get replacements, so I had to keep buying Danelectros. When the store finally ran out of them, I bought a Fender Jazz Bass, put on LaBella strings, and used it to cut the recorded version.
Click to expand...
 

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