Geddy Lee - Geddy Lees Big Beautiful Book of Bass

Contents

Contents

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This book is dedicated with love to the amazing N.Y., without whose steadfast encouragement and extreme level of nerd tolerance it would not have been possible for me to go down, down, down the rabbit hole once again...

L eo Fender once said, I dont believe that any electric guitar improves with age. I think that is a myth. Was he right?

Great collections transcend the objects contained within them: they tell stories, relay information, create meaning, and convey purpose. The extraordinary and beautiful industrial designs thoughtfully showcased in this book range from pristine, virtually untouched examples to those played passionately night after night.

Years after the golden age of electric guitar manufacturing, Leo couldnt comprehend the desirability of the early output of his and his contemporaries factories. Throughout his life, he relentlessly pursued perfection through incremental improvement. This book is a testament to the insatiable drive of Mr. Fender and his peers.

In the early 1950s, the electrification and mass production of solid-body guitars and basses sparked a revolution. With amplification, bands became more efficient and mobile. Louder and smaller, guitars became an attention-grabbing lead instrument capable of playing to ever-larger venues. Music changed forever. The most successful bands of every musical style toured locally and nationally, building the DNA of modern music. From honkytonks to hayrides, ballrooms to basements, garages to stadiums, high schools, and clubs, these stringed instruments evoked joy, passion, hysteria, angst, discord, and rebellion. The intimate relationship musicians forged with these tools helped write the soundtrack of the twentieth century.

Mr. Fender was wrong: electric guitars do get better with age. The presence of those who played them before us forever exists within these instruments. They are an extension of our collective musical identity and echoes of the past. Vintage guitar collections of this importance and magnitude rarely rest in the hands of a musician as accomplished as Geddy Lee. Geddys collection represents every important popular musical genre, every tone in the bass palette, and is, quite simply, one of the finest of its kind in the world.

Terry Foster

Co-author of Fender: The Golden Age 19461970

Rush R40 Tour, Austin, Texas, May 16, 2015 (Randy Johnson)

G eddy Lee is still my best friend. That says a lot about a relationship that has lasted more than half a century. Weve shared many remarkable experiences in that time, both as bandmates and as buddies, but the thickest glue that bonds us has been our common love of music and musicianship... that, and all his great wine I helped him drink.

For forty-six years we wrote, recorded, and performed some of the most challenging music we could think of, and Id often shake my head and smile at the crazy-cool bass parts Geddy would come up with. They were even better than the bass parts I thought I could writemostly! They always seemed to be just the right combination of smarts and feel that allowed both Neil and me to explore our own arrangements more freely, especially the amazing drum parts that I also wrote but, of course, never got used.

Now hes presented his collection of basses in such a thoughtful and elegant manner that, I must say, looking at the photographs makes me want to become a bass player. Whew, shake it off, Al, shake it off!

Ive been on the other side of the stage while Geddys played many of these bass guitars, and his passion and love for them were evident to me whenever I saw his huge grin. I know how hard he worked on this gorgeous bookIve hardly seen the guy for the past year, and Im getting rather thirsty, but I know what it means to him to be the custodian of all those incredible instruments with their colorful histories. He didnt do this for the big bucks and chicks like I did; he did it because he loves those four-stringed wonders that have given him so much joy throughout his life... and mine.

Alex Lifeson

Illustration by Daniel Richler

I suppose it was during the spring of 2012 that the notion of acquiring a vintage bass guitar first lodged in my mind. We had just started gearing up rehearsals for the Clockwork Angels Tour when I was approached by a music store with an offer of an instrument swap. They were looking for one of my stage-used basses to beef up their own hall of fame and tried to tempt me with a mid-1950s Fender Precision in return. At first blush, I wasnt interested. I wasnt a collector (of instruments, at least) and would certainly never, ever part with any of my main instrumentscertainly not the 1973 Rickenbacker 4001 or my current Number One, the 1972 Fender Jazz.

Still, it sparked a series of discussions about vintage instruments with my trusted bass technician, John Skully McIntosh, during which I not only discovered how passionate and knowledgeable he was on the subject, but also how little I actually knew about the history of the instrument Id been associated with for more than forty years.

So I started reading up on Leo Fender and the early years of the Fender electric bass. What a leap those instruments represented for the musical technology of the day, and what it must have meant to players back then to go from playing a stand-up all their lives to suddenly having a fretted instrument in their hands. Then I investigated the history behind Rickenbacker, Gibson, Hfner, and on and on, getting deeper and deeper into the story of my main monkey business. The genealogy of these various brands had become, quite suddenly, fascinating to me. And as anyone with the collectors gene will tell you, fascinating can be a dangerous word....

Allow me to take a moment here to explain something key to my personality. Once I turn my gaze to a thing with any degree of interest, I become curious, and feel compelled to research it. Curiosity turns into fascination, which begets even deeper engagement, and then, uh-oh, its a full-blown