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If Danny Gatton Did it..Does that make it Okay??

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unbasslichkeit

unbasslichkeit

Apr 4, 2003
1,261
16
PR of Greenbelt, MD
www.unidentifiedbassplayer.org
#1
BF2821 Fender Precision Bass, 1958, from the collection of Danny Gatton with letter from Mrs. Gatton, body finish stripped, customized with 5th string, Grover tuner and extra string tree, neck set up fretless, rhinestone side dots added, used on Cruisin' Deuces and 88 Elmira St. recordings, rough tweed HC (fabric stripped)......$5000

Now, admit it: if this was on eBay, without the name, a lot of vintage buffs would be screaming "Butcher!!"

But this bass is a Gatton bass, and is on sale at Gruhn's in Nashville...so I guess it's history. What do you all think?

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#10
JasonNL said:
Just looking at the awkward string spacing makes me want to not play it really, really badly.
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+1

I'm a Gatton fan, but I wouldn't want this bass. I surely couldn't play it, and the novelty factor would be minimal. If I hung it on the wall, most people wouldn't get it, including me. Like so many things Danny Gatton did, this is a very idiosyncratic and eccentric modification which really only served the temporary purposes of the previous owner.
 
#11
mccartneyman said:
What's really interesting is that he stuck in a guitar peg and ran the D string to it rather than usinbg iot for the G -- unless my eyes deceive me. I'll admit that its sounded great on "Cruisn' Deuces," though.
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Actually the guitar peg is for the G-string, the D-string is just angled around the G-side of the string tree and up to the peg usually reserved for the G-string.

If I recall correctly, he just added another string hole to a stock Fender bridge and has the strings angled over the regular saddles, which accounts for the uneven spacing...

I do like the rhinestones for position markers as they do help navigation on dark stages. Knowing Gatton's penchant for potting microphonic pickups in melted crayon wax, I shudder to think of what he used to fill in the fret slots...

I'd love the instrument for it's provenence and then further modify it to make it playable for me - what's done is done and instruments like that are meant to be played
 
#16
Weird, but I would buy it and reverse the mod quicker than you can say "GATTON!"
Looks like all it needs is a new nut and maybe a dowel plug for that guitar tuner. I mean, it is a '58 for $5 grand. Stripped finish or no.

Looks like a "[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]" on the headstock there too.
 
#17
electracoyote said:
+1

Like so many things Danny Gatton did, this is a very idiosyncratic and eccentric modification which really only served the temporary purposes of the previous owner.
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I actually got to play another of Gatton's parts-basses - a grey Precision which almost felt like a short scale. It was the house bass at Bias Studios in Springfield, VA. Didn't appreciate it much at the time - I only played it 'cos the engineer/producer didn't like my Jazz Bass. He always seemed to find something wrong with it in the session, and it wasn't my session so I took his 'suggestion' to play it. :mad::atoz:
 
#20
57pbass said:
He was not a low level celebrity..

he was a gifted guitar player who died tragically.....
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I was being kind calling him a "low level celebrity". In reality, he's not a celebrity at all. Danny Gatton made a minor impact on a very tiny segment of the population. 99.9999% of the population in this country have never heard of him. 98% of musicians have never heard of him.

Gifted? I guess. Not my cup of tea by a longshot, but whatever. There are thousands of gifted players floating around. There are also dozens of gifted guitar players who died tragic deaths. When it comes to "talented musicians who die tragic deaths", Gatton wasn't the first and won't be the last.
 
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