Deke now owns Grady Martin’s 1956 Danelectro 6-String Bass
''In 1956, Grady Martin brought the first Danelectro 6-string bass to Nashville. The instrument was brand new, a concept that Danelectro touted as a cross between a bass and a guitar. Grady was known for pioneering many things in his career, but rarely gets credited for thinking up the uses for a Danelectro 6-string bass in terms of Nashville recording sessions. He bought one of the new instruments and immediately began using it at recording sessions. The "tic tac bass," as it became known, was a valuable part of the Nashville session arsenal, often doubling the parts played by the upright bass player and the left hand of the piano player--which created a thick, beefy, full-fidelity sound. It's a sound you would recognize from a thousand hits, but just think about records like Patsy Cline's "I Fall To Pieces," as a perfect example. By 1958, Harold Bradley (Owen Bradley's brother) had a copper-colored Danelectro 6-string bass, and Harold became known as the 'tic tac bass' guy, although Grady started the craze in Nashville. Today, it's part of any session guy's arsenal, usually as a Baritone guitar (tuned B to B or A to A), but in the 1950s, all that was offered was the 6-string bass.
Grady played this Danelectro 6-string bass on some of my very favorite records of all time, records like Johnny Horton's "Honky Tonk Hardwood Floor" (just listen to that intro!), and "The Wild One" and "Sugar Coated Baby." Once Hank Garland came in to the Nashville session scene (around 1957-1958) in a big way, Grady would often play 6-string bass while Hank Garland played the lead guitar parts. During this time, Grady played this bass on records by Elvis Presley (CHECK OUT THE PHOTO OF ELVIS HOLDING THIS VERY 6-STRING BASS--GOOD LORD!), Brenda Lee, Roy Orbison, and at least a couple of Patsy Cline sessions in 1958-1959 (I don't think Grady played the 6-string bass on any of her big hits, but this bass is on at least 2-3 sessions before Harold Bradley became "the guy" who played on all of her big hits).
And, perhaps most importantly, the very first fuzztone electronic effect was recorded with this bass, in 1960. Think I'm kidding? It's true.
Marty Robbins was in Nashville at Owen Bradley's studio, recording a song called "Don't Worry About Me." Grady was playing the tic tac bass on the session. Midway through the session, one of the channels on the mixing board began to malfunction, and a distorted, overdriven sound came out of the speakers when Grady played the Danelectro.
The engineer on the session was a man named Glen Snoddy. Snoddy went to replace the malfunctioning channel, but Grady Martin, in his infinite wisdom, said: "Wait a minute, it's got an unusual sound--let's use it on the record."
Go listen to Marty Robbins' "Don't Worry About Me" and wait for the solo. When that fuzz 6-string bass kicks in, it's the funkiest thing ever. It's just wild. And it's Grady, playing THIS bass.
Grady used the malfunctioning channel and the 6-string bass on a few other recordings of the era, and on a couple of his own solo singles, "The Fuzz" and "Twist and Turn." By 1961, they had a name for it: FUZZ.
Glen Snoddy, the engineer who was on the 1960 Marty Robbins section, figured that it wouldn't be too difficult to make a device that would replicate the fuzz sound. He designed a transistor circuit that was simple, battery powered, and could be mounted in a foot pedal. He took his design to Gibson in Michigan, and they licensed his design and released the first commercially available fuzz pedal, the Maestro "Fuzz Tone," in 1962.
Gibson didn't really know what to do with it--they released a demonstration record showing how the fuzz tone could be used to sound like various brass and woodwind instruments. It wasn't until some young rock and rollers got their hands on a Maestro Fuzz Tone that they figured out the deal: It just makes a hell of a racket. Keith Richards used a Maestro Fuzz Tone on the Rolling Stones "Satisfaction" in 1964, and soon every teenage rock and roll band was playing distorted fuzz tone guitar and annoying the crap out of their neighbors and their moms and dads. And it all happened because of Grady Martin, playing THIS bass, on a Marty Robbins country-western session in 1960.
This bass has a ton of history behind it, and Grady Martin is one of my favorite guitarists of all time. That would have been enough for me to lust after this instrument. But I can say this--I have an original 1959 Danelectro 6-string bass. I have a reissue from the 90s. I've played ten or twelve original 1950s and early 1960s Danelectro 6-string basses over the years. They were all cool and sounded great.
But this one is magical. I don't know what it is about this one. But it's like the Danelectro guys made this one on the best day they ever had. The neck is magic. The pickups and the rest of the parts are the best ones I've ever heard. The body feels different, more solid, I don't know how else to put it. What I remember is picking this one up at Gruhn's back in 2011 and thinking, "holy moley--this is a SERIOUS instrument." I got those same goosebumps today when I bought the guitar from Tom.''
with Hank Garland