Ideal Bass for Bluegrass - Challenging Preconceptions

[Michedelic]

I hate that people keep spreading the myth that you need an upright in bluegrass. It's not true and and it never was true.

Many of the 1st generation bluegrass bands used electric bass. Idk why this misconception keeps getting rehashed.

You don't need your electric to sound like an upright either. Get good tone out of your instrument and play well and it'll be fine. Just like any other genre

To what bands are your referring? 1st gen bluegrass bands formed prior to the availability of the mass produced electric bass guitar.

Reno and smiley, Jim and Jesse, Osborne Brothers, Doyle Lawson, jimmy Martin, Scruggs, Larry Sparks.

There might be some debate on who's truly first gen but these are all classic artists. They may not have used electrics initially but we're all happy to adopt it pretty early on.

Uhh, Bill Monroe, anyone? Historically cited as the father of what became referred to as the Bluegrass genre, he started formulating the concept in the 30’s, but it was fully realized by the late 40’s. Still before the advent of the mass produced electric bass.

 

[M-Mittlesteadt]

Thanks for all the replies. I kind of put this thread out there just to get some reactions and see what other bass players do in these cross genre bands.

I am grateful for the encouragement to follow my own path, but I am somewhat surprised there weren't more "traditional" recommendations, ala - DB, EUB, Precisions with flats, etc.

Keep on...interesting reading.

 

[Tim Skaggs]

I have seen all but Reno - Smiley and Jim - Jesse live. I played at the same festival as Lawson at Byrds Adventure center on the Mulberry River in AR in the mid ‘00s when Jamie Dailey was in his band. Lawson had an electric upright then. He probably adopted electric bass in the 1980s and explained why at every show ( I’ve seen him 4 or 5 times).

I saw Bobby Osborne & Larry Sparks a couple times or more each since 2000. Both had uprights in their band every time I saw them.

Scruggs didn’t use electric bass until after he and Flatt split. He also rarely played in his own band and when he did his son did play electric bass. He was seen on stage as a guest playing with a lot of bands using electric bass.

Flatt & Scruggs had an upright in the band until they split. Lester Flatt & Nashville Grass kept using upright for years and claimed Scruggs left Bluegrass.

Jim & Jesse used upright for probably 30+ years. They did switch to electric bass when they started doing 50s rock in their shows. Jesse continued using electric bass after Jim died, but he wasn’t playing much Bluegrass.

I’ll go with this;

They may not have used electrics initially but we're all happy to adopt it pretty early on.

Not so much this;

Many of the 1st generation bluegrass bands used electric bass.

As I said earlier; there were no mass produced electric basses available to 1st gen Bluegrass bands. Most of those formed in the 1930s to 1950s, so “many” using electric bass was more or less impossible. Newer acoustic bands still use upright (Stringdusters, Punch Bros. Billy Strings Band, Flatt Lonesome, etc)

 

[Paul New]

Reno and smiley, Jim and Jesse, Osborne Brothers, Doyle Lawson, jimmy Martin, Scruggs, Larry Sparks.

There might be some debate on who's truly first gen but these are all classic artists. They may not have used electrics initially but we're all happy to adopt it pretty early on.

The was a time when it looked like electric bass was going to supercede double bass in bluegrass. Early 70s, I think? The same thing happened in jazz. Then, electric faded away (mostly), but now it’s reappearing, and it seems like the same thing is happening in jazz too, again.

 

[Jared Houseman]

Not so much this;

It's true though? First gen bands used electric basses when they became available both live and on recordings. Pretty much everyone but Monroe.

Rock formed roughly the same time that bluegrass did. It would be foolish to say that electric basses don't belong in rock because there were no mass produced electric basses available to the early rock bands.

 

[Tim Skaggs]

First gen bands used electric basses when they became available both live and on recordings. Pretty much everyone but Monroe.

Not from my observation. I started going to two(2) festivals a year around 2000 There wasn’t 1 in 20 acts that used electric bass.As of October ‘24 that had not changed much at all.

Older bands using upright
Ricky Skaggs & KY Thunder
Rhonda Vincent & Rage
Alison Krauss & Union Station
Joe Mullins & Radio Ramblers
The Issaccs

Newer Bluegrass bands that use upright;
Infamous Stringdusters
Old Crow Medicine Show
Steeldrivers
Steep Canyon Rangers
Molly Tuttle
Dan Tyminski
Billy Strings

Rock formed roughly the same time that bluegrass did.

Bluegrass - mid 1930s
Rock - mid 50s

It would be foolish to say that electric basses don't belong in rock because there were no mass produced electric basses available to the early rock bands.

It would be very foolish, considering most music historians consider the early to mid 50s as the beginning of the Rock & Roll era & first mass produced electric bass (Fender Precision) was made available in 1951.

Nobody said electric bass doesn’t belong in bluegrass. I simply pointed out there was no mass produced electric basses available when 1st gen bluegrass bands formed.

You said first gen bluegrass bands started using electric basses when they became available. That’s not accurate. A very small number of 1st gen bluegrass bands used electric bass even after they were available and a small number of modern bluegrass bands use electric bass now after the electric bass has been available for nearly 74 years.

 

[rickdog]

I once showed up at a bluegrass jam with an Earthwood (huge acoustic bass guitar that really works as an acoustic instrument, in case anyone isn't familiar). No one would look me in the eye, much less invite me to play with them

It didn't discourage me. I've played a variety of bluegrass-influenced music with electric basses, the majority with my fretless Frankenstein Fender and my Rickenbacker 4001, through a small tube amp pushed to the sweet edge of breakup. And I don't exactly play root-five on the beat....

 

[stinkfoot60]

Hot Rize formed in 1978 and has won International Bluegrass Music Association awards and been nominated for Grammys. Their bass player, Nick Forster, plays a Precision.

 

[Ben Noblit]

It's the Hee-Haw, hayseed, washtub bass and jug on the porch, no electricity out in the sticks, Deliverance, Dueling Banjos stereotype. And given that, how many UB's were even around to play in those scenarios? I'd say zilch.

Leaving aside the rest of this thread, as someone from the sticks in the musical tradition you so charmingly describe, you'd be surprised! You can find documentation of uprights in Southern string band music as far back as the 1840s. Plus a plethora of church basses, cellos and the like used to play the bass role, and of course the tub bass, which likely started not as an imitation of an upright, but as a descendant of an African instrument called the earth bow.

 

[brianrost]

Just saw a local BG quartet doing an online performance today. Guitar, mandolin , banjo and 5-string bass guitar.

 

[spade2you]

How many Bluegrass musicians does it take to change a lightbulb??





None! 'Lectricity is THE DEVIL!!!