Donald "Duck" Dunn (November 24, 1941 – May 13, 2012):
Dunn was born in
Memphis, Tennessee. His father nicknamed him "
Duck" while watching
Disney cartoons with him one day. Dunn grew up playing sports and riding his bike with another future professional musician,
Steve Cropper.
"I picked up a ukulele when I was about 10 and I started playing bass when I was 16. I tried the guitar but it had two strings too many. It was just too complicated, man! Plus, I grew up with Steve Cropper.
There were so many good guitar players another one wasn’t needed. What was needed was a bass. I mostly learned just by listening to records. I don’t know how to explain it but I knew if I could do it, I’d be good at it! My first bass was a new Kay, one of the cheaper models.”
And, of course, it was slightly less than Duck wanted. Smiling at the memory, he adds: “When I used to look in the music store windows and see the Fenders hanging there, I was like a kid at Christmas. The Kay was fine but you knew if you could get your hands on a Fender you would do better. I bought my first Fender in ’58 [NOTE See below] and I still have it at home.
I lost it once and I got it back,” he pauses. “It’s a Precision, with a maple neck. I just always took it for granted, never worried about the setting or action. It was a Fender, man, I didn’t care!”
Cropper has noted how the self-taught Dunn started out playing along with records, filling in what he thought should be there. "That's why Duck Dunn's bass lines are very unique", Cropper said, "They're not locked into somebody's schoolbook somewhere"
In 1971, when the rhythm guitarist
Tom Fogerty left
Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR), the remaining members discussed with Dunn the possibility of his joining the group, with their current bassist,
Stu Cook, moving to guitar. Booker T. and the MG's had performed in concert and jammed in the studio with CCR in the past, and Dunn in particular had become friends with the band members. However, CCR ultimately decided to remain a trio from then on.
Dunn played himself in the 1980 feature
The Blues Brothers, where he famously uttered the line, "We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline!" and was frequently shown smoking a pipe whilst playing.
When Dunn was 16, he acquired his first Fender Precision Bass, a 1959 model with sunburst body, one-piece maple neck and gold anodized pickguard, an instrument he owned until his death.
[12] Throughout his life, Dunn believed this was a '58 model, but after his passing, his son Jeff had work done on the bass, and the neck was inscribed "4-59," putting the date definitively as 1959. During the 1960s, he used a nearly identical 1959 model, but it was outfitted with a rosewood fretboard. He was an avid user of thick La Bella flatwound strings, as was
James Jamerson.
[13]
Over the years, Dunn played through a "Fliptop" (the iconic Ampeg B-15 combo so named for its head that flipped over to store in the cabinet), as well as a Kustom 200 stack, and a Fender rig. He is best known for his use of an
AmpegSVT head and the company's matching 8×10" cabinet through his endorsement deal with Ampeg.
