Too $hort Presents: Pimp My Sadowsky. Ep 1 'Big Daddy P'

Big daddy P. ​

Big cause sonically he's Howlin Wolf. Big, broad, masculine, and if I'm not careful, hard to tame. Daddy cause there's a little Daddy O' in that color scheme, and the P is cause he's pure P-bass.



Heavy, unchambered ash. Brazilian Rosewood, and if Big Daddy P had a pimped out ride, it'd have more Seafoam green and gold than Isaac Hayes' fictional surfboard.

Roger Sadowsky's crack team of artisans, I'm told, are so highly sought after, that he didn't dare back in 2011 or so to reveal their faces publicly. Hence this:




As Robert Palmer said once, their work is simply irresistible.
Building 'boo-teak' instruments sans pants ... an innovation Roger doesn't get enough credit for, and I can only imagine what kind of 'freedom' there is now with a limited staff and more hiding places in the shop.

And yet ...

I bought an extra tort guard for a reason. I was introduced to this Jamerson acolyte by the name of Willie Weeks, and his weapon of choice was this:



I always loved that color scheme, but ended up going back to the gold guard.

I love the gold guard look.


All was well, for a few years of gigging, but I always had that tort thing in my head, and I kept hearing here on this site that tort had some mystical relationship with PBasses of all different types/designs. I mean, X-Amount of threads had to be onto something.


Then this happened ...

Part II: Enter Oisín Olinto.



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There are so many good P with a B options out there, it's kind of exhausting. I took a bold leap in the dark here on this one:

• Mas Hino makes it using old-school craftsmanship? Winds the pickup?
• Fancy Brazilian RW/Dried Alder?
• Affiliated with LaBella, the flat wound folks?

That bass has more going for $4K than any bass I've played. I have been playing a blues gig during Covid times ... sporadically but glad to have it, and despite me being a Sadowsky adherent/advocate/fanboy to my very DNA, I have to admit that this Olinto out does Big Daddy P when it comes to 'P with a B with flats'.

It just crushes it.

Enter Part III, where I admit my Willie Weeks style love of tort, with a twist

Part III: Slap some Cream on Dat Seafoam Green
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One of my many obsessions: cream-colored pickups. Why, oh why, is this not just a standard option for all bass pickup manufacturers? It pops ... heck, it locks too while were at it. It 'slaps' to use the parlance of our times.

Good luck finding them for a 19MM PJ5.

I won't re-cap that quest. My annoying mewing looking for options. To bring this sucker into a close, let's just say I finally dove in under the rubric of 'it's my bass I'll do what I damn well please'.

Rattle-can ... sealant ... and there was a sort of clog in the can despite proper shaking that left some rough spots on the pickups. I likely will end up making another, cleaner go at this, but for what it is, I think it looks damn fine.

Oisín Olinto is my 'Pure Vintage P', but Big Daddy P needed some SS Rounds, and some cream up in that Seafoam green ...

 

Derail my own thread: Gandalf is a Proto, Tolkien version of ‘The Dude’.

 

Appreciate that. Sometimes the journey is admitting what fits your ‘thang’ and hopefully (god knows I did NOT) avoiding the multitude if awesome basses that will just never be YOU.