I was "assigned" to string bass in the 7th grade and I stayed with it for the next 8 years or so, playing in the high school orchestra and into my first couple of years of college. But In the 10th grade I answered a newspaper ad that said something like "bass player needed for working country western group. Band will supply equipment". I called the number and it turned out to be the local western swing band that had won every battle of the bands in town. So I passed the audition and joined them for a while. That was my introduction to electric bass...a Fender Precision. It was 1969. Two years later I was playing in a horn band doing Chicago tunes. And the beat goes on.
