For lack of something better...

I think from time to time here if there is not much else going on I'll write the story of my instruments. Music has meant a lot to me and I don't think that is something that I get across to other people so well, other than the people I play music with that is.

First up is my bass guitar. It is a Fender precision bass, invented by Leo Fender in the early 50s to give the upright bass player an alternative to being drownded out by big bands. I think it changed the sound of music more than any thing else.

I bought this one brand new in about 1985 or 86. I have been told by the experts the serial number dates it 1983. I did not buy in in 1983, because this bass arrived by UPS truck at my house and the delivery man put in it the back seat of a 1984 Oldsmobile Rocket 88 I owned at the time because I was not at home.

So this thing has 20 years of playing time on it. I think it was a bit more the color of Cafe Dumonde coffee when I got it but it has aged to a nice yellow cream color that the picture don't seem to do justice to. Always buy a light colored Fender guitar, keep it a long time and watch it change.

When I play this guitar I always think of the Lucinda Williams song with the lyric, "... the worn down places in the wood the ones that made you feel so good..." and this pretty much describes the feel I have for this guitar. I have played it in a suit, I have played it in my underwear, I have played it at church, for weddings, funerals, and at biker parties way out past where the pavement ends.

After I'm dead and gone it will just be a piece of lumber to someone else. Don't seem fair for a thing that has brought so much pleasure and discovery to my life and somehow I don't think anything I have said here will really get that magical musical feeling I get across to anyone else unless they have been there themselves.