Fretless: who was first?

[nysbob]

Yes, "What Love" which is all of side one of the album "The Collectors" which was a Warner Brothers album.

Thank you, sir!

 

[62bass]

The oldest fretless bass that I've seen on record is 1960 for the Petrodactyls (I spelt that wrong, its the winged dinosaur thing) On the cover is the bass player with a fretless Fender Precision Bass. I didn't sound like the mwah sound I keep hearing about (I don't even know what mwah means) but it sounds pretty damn close to an upright and all the basslines were really smooth.

I think I actually heard a cut from that album once. If it's 1960 and actually a fretless then he beats out Wyman. He must have defretted it himself or had someone do it because no factory Fenders came like that then.

 

[Darkstrike]

Bill Wyman used his first fretless bass in a band called The Cliftons before he joined the Stones, considiring he joined them in '62 he probably was first, but I dont know how long before the Stones he started fretless.

 

[cnltb]

bill wyman had the first one, right?

 

[Dr. Cheese]

I recently interviewed Ralphe Armstrong for Gibsonbasss.com (not published yet) and he said that he was friends with Jamerson and James owned the first fretless electric bass, a fender Precision, if I recall what he said correctly. He said he saw Jamerson's fretless and he wanted one. Ralphe found one and was the second bass player to own an electric fretless bass, in his words.

He went on to say he knew Jaco and when he auditioned for the Mahivishnu Orchestra, he got the job because he had a fretless bass (which he said were impossible to find back then), Jaco was not playing a fretless at the time.

He said after that is when Jaco pulled the frets from his bass.

That is what Ralphe personally told me.

as far as the first recorded fretless I'm not sure?

That's an interesting story, but I really doubt the idea that Jaco went fretless after losing a gig to the great Ralphe Armstrong. I suspect Jaco was already playing fretless, but took a fretted to that audition.

 

[Chazinroch]

I remember, or at least I think I remember reading that Sir Paul recorded Rain on a fretless. That would be somewhere in '65/'66 time frame. Maybe I just dreamed this??

 

[stretch80]

What about Jack Bruce? Wasn't he playing fretless pretty early on? Or did he take it up later?

 

[superbassman2000]

he took it up later AFAIK...like after cream...i thought he took it up in the 80s

 

[whitman]

The oldest fretless bass that I've seen on record is 1960 for the Petrodactyls (I spelt that wrong, its the winged dinosaur thing) On the cover is the bass player with a fretless Fender Precision Bass. I didn't sound like the mwah sound I keep hearing about (I don't even know what mwah means) but it sounds pretty damn close to an upright and all the basslines were really smooth.

Hey, B.B.Blues. Very interested in this - if you're right, that's early! Please tell us more. Do you have the record? How's this band's name really spelled, what label, etc? And, crucially, did it really come out in 1960? (If so, it would have to be a hand-defretted P-Bass cos the production one didn't come out till about 1970.)

 

[KayCee]

Who played the first fretless bass on record?

Could be some long-forgotten bassist in a band whose single only reached #89 on the Billboard charts.


EDIT: ...like the "Petrodactyls", for example.

 

[whitman]

Come on, BellBottomBlues, do tell us more about the Petro/Ptero/Whatever...dactyls.

 

[higgi]

I was playing a fretless Fender P in 1962. I defretted it myself.

Even if you weren't the first, cheers to you. Nice to have a history maker in our midst!

 

[cnltb]

wyman did that in 1959 as far as I know...

 

[burk48237]

The funny thing is Fender was so out of touch with it's markets they didn't offer a frettless Jazz till almost 1979. Despite the fact that everyone was trying to sound like Jaco a couple of years earlier. For years the only frettless they offered was a P bass. Gibson was almost as bad, while all those Rock and Rollers were playing fifties Les Pauls in the early seventies, Gibson didn't offer a Les Paul bodied model from 62 until almost 74! All those kids who wanted to look like rock stars were buying Ibenezes and Crestwoods.

I met Michael Henderson at Wonderland music in Detroit in 75. He was just sitting in the store jamming on a Fender J. The man made that Fender J sound so good. He was really a phenomenal player, what I remember more then anything was the way he played his walks.

 

[Georynn]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Jack Bruce's line from Badge.
Mwaahh... I think that was the first fretless with mwahh that I can think of.

 

[Hoover]

The neat thing is that Henderson, Saunders, and Johnson were all r&b players from Detroit

I thought Alphonso Johnson was from Philadelphia?

 

[bassist4dalord]

Ralphe Armstrong is another Detroit fretless player. There must be something in the water in Wayne County.

The water is fine!!! lol... I don't play fretless but I have and it's pretty fun...

 

[Barkless Dog]

Armstrong claims Jamerson was the first to own a Fender fretless.

 

[GlennW]

Here's Bill with his homade fretless.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=D0WeB-3rmCk

 

[CrackerJackLee]

There were prolly many, but Rod Hicks seemed to be the most adept fretless player in 1970 with Paul Butterfield. Every ensemble fretless player (jazz/blues) must pay respects to this album to see how the thing is supposed to sound...pure tone and pizzicato finger magic. (perpetual solo bedroom soloists who hammer at it with their thumbs won't appreciate something this musical)