Geddy Lee's Big Beautiful Book of Bass by Geddy Lee

Author:Geddy Lee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-09-17T16:00:00+00:00

KC:I want to say it was like ’90—the year that Freddie died. And I happened to walk into Norman’s shop, which is rare for me because it’s in the West Valley. And he looked over and says, “Ken, you’re a Blonde bass guy. Take a look at this!” It hadn’t gone to his storage unit yet, and was still in the store. And so he opened the case and showed it to me along with the note from Freddie. Of course, I knew who Freddie was and I was like, “Okay, it’s a deal!” And at the time it was like, “Oh, we got to dig a little deeper for this one.” But, you know, as a collector there are certain instruments that rarely come along, and if you’re somewhat knowledgeable you think, “I will not see another one for a long time.” So, if you can, that’s the time you step up.

GL:So, can you tell me how the Explorer came into your hands?

KC:The first time I ever saw it was at a guitar show in Texas. It was on a stand with a sign that said “Not for Sale.” I knew about it because Robb Lawrence, whom I bought that EB-0 from in San Diego and who became a bit of a collecting mentor for me, told me how he’d bought the Explorer Bass from Wayne Bullock, Lonnie Mack’s bassist, in Cincinnati in about ’71. It was painted in a metallic blue or green, I’m not sure which came first, but Robb stripped the bass and restored it to the natural korina finish. At the time it had three fleur-de-lis tuners and just one banjo tuner, and he restored all the banjo tuners too. Then Rick Derringer came around. Robb was showing it to a lot of people, including John Entwistle. I have a picture of John with it in a hotel room. And Jack Bruce saw it. And Rick Derringer, who was a real Explorer fan, talked Robb into selling the bass to his manager Steve, and Steve gave it to Randy Jo Hobbs, who was the original bass player for the “Hang on Sloopy” band, the McCoys, and later on played with him and Edgar and Johnny Winter. Randy Jo had it for a few years, and at a certain point he pawned it, apparently, on Music Row in New York to a family of guitar dealers, the Friedmans, and Steve Friedman used it on a couple of Lou Reed tracks at the time, on Street Hassle. Then the bass was in the window of this music store on Thirty-Fourth Street for a long time, until Tony Duke, a guitar player and dealer and a friend of Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top, bought it for a longtime collector named Byron Goad in Texas. Byron sold it in ’95 to John Nelson, who was the most free-ranging of the LA dealers on Sunset, and played in Eddie Money’s band. So, the second time I saw it was at the guitar show at the Santa Monica Civic, and John was asking fifty grand for it.

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