acoustic or electric bass? Hot Tuna edition

mellowgerman

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I was going back through my old youtube channel that I've been locked out of now for a few years and came across this awesome version of Death Don't Have No Mercy. This has always been my favorite recording of this song. When I first found it online somewhere (probably around 2005), I'm pretty sure the source suggested it was likely from the 80's. For the longest time I took this to be a very good possibility since I decided Jack sounded like he was playing an acoustic bass -- so I immediately thought of his B-50 that he's seen playing in videos from the 80's. Reading through the comments though several people suggest this is actually from the early 70's, even citing particular dates and shows.
Listening to it now, after a lot more years of Hot Tuna listening under my belt, I agree that Jorma especially sounds like early-70's-Jorma, both in his vocals and guitar playing. Also, that definitely does sound like Papa John Creach.
Still, my ears are convinced that those are phosphor bronze roundwound bass strings on an acoustic bass. If this recording really was from the 70's, what bass could this be? I know a Starfire can have some subtle nuances similar to an acoustic, from resonance and the resulting string vibration. Regardless, I'm pretty sure this is not a Starfire or the bisonic'd flying V. I suppose it's possible that this is the Alembic strung with rounds as they do have a wicked versatile tonal palette, but all I truly hear is an acoustic bass with phosphor bronze strings, which there were very few to choose from in the early 70's... Could it have been his Balalaika bass? The only other recording it's on that I know of is the studio cut of "Third Week In The Chelsea"
What do you guys think?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb8l8MWA7yk
 
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mavuser

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sounds like an electric bass to me, guessing one of the alembics or owsley/ambelic etc. moded Guilds. wouldnt rule out the flying v jetstar, if it existed at the time. i think its a solid body.
 

fronobulax

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Good question. I note the similarity to acoustic phosphor bronze but if it is a B-50 in needs to be 1976 or later. Since it has Papa John it should be '70-'72. The modified Starfire was still in use in 1970. The "Flying V" Guild was mid-'70's. The Alembic was 1972. As far as I can tell the Starfire continued to be used until the Alembic showed up. That being the case I'm going to propose the Starfire. I definitely hear the woody crunch that I hear from a Bisonic in a hollow body but have not yet heard from a similar solid body. Different strings? Maybe he forgot his nail clippers?



In the clip above it is obvious which bass is being played :) and there seems to be a lot of sonic similarities although there are differences. Clip circa 1970 from a folk music show on what we would now call PBS.
 

hieronymous

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I can't particularly tell - I think an Alembicized instrument could sound like that. It sounds kinda crunchy, but the recording doesn't have a lot of low-end.

I was hoping maybe you were talking about this video where the bass is plainly in sight lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjfhsLuOEWI

Not sure when he stopped playing this one - I'm no expert on the chronology of his instruments.

EDIT: ahahaha - Frono beat me to it!
 

fronobulax

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I can't particularly tell - I think an Alembicized instrument could sound like that. It sounds kinda crunchy, but the recording doesn't have a lot of low-end.

I was hoping maybe you were talking about this video where the bass is plainly in sight lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjfhsLuOEWI

Not sure when he stopped playing this one - I'm no expert on the chronology of his instruments.

EDIT: ahahaha - Frono beat me to it!

:)

The bass in the clip appears in other clips as late as 1972 at which point a switch to Alembic #1 probably occurred.
 

Minnesota Flats

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Only time I ever saw them play live was early on at a small venue in the East (SF) Bay Area and Jack was playing the "Yggdrasil" Guild SF, while Jorma played a (Gibson?) acoustic on some songs and a 345 or 355 on others. This was before Papa John, though Will Scarlet played harmonica on some tunes that night. It was also prior to the release of the first Hot Tuna album. The "Hesitation Blues" clip posted above was probably recorded within days of the show I saw.

(Please don't correct me about calling the bass "Yggdrasil": I use the term only for purposes of indicating which of the two Starfires and understand that that actually wasn't the name of the bass, itself) .
 

adorshki

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In the clip above it is obvious which bass is being played :) and there seems to be a lot of sonic similarities although there are differences. Clip circa 1970 from a folk music show on what we would now call PBS.
I agree, I think Jack just has it dialed in to best complement Jorma's unplugged flattop sound.
The other half of that show:

It was actually '69 in the studios of the local SF National Educational Television station KQED.
They had some rather "edgy" bands in their studio in the day, somebody in their management was fond of the counterculture:
http://moviemagg.blogspot.com/2019/01/west-pole-kqed-tv-kqed-experimental.html
Ralf Gleason even used their studios to produce a JA television concert, "Go Ride The Music" which yielded the bootleg Up Against the Wall M----------ers:
e1f038f0-7247-463d-ab12-887933e56a5f

http://moviemagg.blogspot.com/2019/01/go-ride-music-national-educational.html
 

mellowgerman

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I agree, I think Jack just has it dialed in to best complement Jorma's unplugged flattop sound.
The other half of that show:

It was actually '69 in the studios of the local SF National Educational Television station KQED.
They had some rather "edgy" bands in their studio in the day, somebody in their management was fond of the counterculture:
http://moviemagg.blogspot.com/2019/01/west-pole-kqed-tv-kqed-experimental.html
Ralf Gleason even used their studios to produce a JA television concert, "Go Ride The Music" which yielded the bootleg Up Against the Wall M----------ers:
e1f038f0-7247-463d-ab12-887933e56a5f

http://moviemagg.blogspot.com/2019/01/go-ride-music-national-educational.html


Thanks for the link, Al.
Very interesting input from all here, however, I have strong doubts that this "Mann's Fate" recording was from the same session as the "Death Don't Have No Mercy". In any case, even if it was, there is absolutely no way the bass on the "Death Don't Have No Mercy" recording is the brown Starfire. "Mann's Fate" as well as the "Hesitation Blues" recordings from that video series clearly 100% have the signature Casady Starfire flatwounds+bisonic sound. It's just not possible to make flatwounds sound like roundwounds... there are harmonic overtones that rounds create, which simply are not generated by flatwounds. As determined in previous discussions here on LTG, that particular bass didn't even have active filters onboard, as we now know them by Alembic (i.e. Alembic superfilters, as on Phil's "Godfather" bass and, I'm pretty sure, the later sunburst Casady Starfire). Passive filters cannot add to the sound generated by the strings and the pickups, they can only subtract and thereby emphasize and bring to the forefront certain existing frequencies. Though everything I'm hearing suggests otherwise, I could possibly be made to believe that the bass in "Death Don't Have No Mercy" was the Alembic I with roundwounds, as there is not enough info available about that first Alembic bass, in any of it's varying configurations, to say for sure what it would have been capable of. Regardless, it's unlikely that those electronics could have done things a modern Superfilter could not. Being a proud owner of an Alembic SF-2, I can attest that a Starfire with bisonics and flatwounds, when run through one of these circuits, still keeps the general tonal character (specifically because it can't change the composition of the strings or how they vibrate, which of course is the origin of the electric signal that finally comes out of the speaker) no matter how the knobs are tweaked.
My thinking is still acoustic bass of some sort with rounds. There is a zingy bright, hollow quality to that sound, as well as the attack and decay of the notes, which I've only ever heard from an acoustic bass with rounds. This also makes me think it was later than the Tuna video above, because I don't know of any acoustic bass guitars that existed in 1969, nor were roundwound bass strings common... on a slight tangent, I think I recall people saying that roundwounds for bass came about in late 69 or 70 and that the first big user of them was John Entwistle? There is of course the piano-string story about Paul McCartnety being the first to use rounds, but I honestly think that was just another fun story from the Beatles folklore files.
Sorry about my rambling, just my thinking on the matter
 
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twocorgis

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sounds like an electric bass to me, guessing one of the alembics or owsley/ambelic etc. moded Guilds. wouldnt rule out the flying v jetstar, if it existed at the time. i think its a solid body.

I agree. By the time they get to the second verse, it no longer sounds like an acoustic bass, and must be either the modded Starfire, or his first Alembic. This would be a good question for the Hot Tuna-Jorma Kaukonen Fan Club group over on Facebook. There's a lot of really knowledgeable folks over there, including a few bandmates.
 

mellowgerman

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Might just be that years of "hearing" an acoustic bass on this recording makes my ears refuse to hear anything different. Again, I could see this being the Alembic Mission Control bass or maybe that sunburst Starfire, but it's definitely a set of roundwound strings on there
 

fronobulax

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Points.

I was not suggesting that what I called the PBS videos were recorded at the same time as the Death clip. I was, however, suggesting that I heard sonic similarities between them and there was no doubt about which bass was being used in the PB videos.

Roundwounds were invented in the early '60's and were mainstream enough than I tried some in the early '70's. Given Mr. Casady's quest for tone I can easily imagine that roundwounds were tried on a modified Starfire at some point. Whether they stayed on the bass or were ever played in public is a whole different realm of speculation.

I would be very interested in a frequency analysis of the beginning which is where I hear the strongest similarities to an acoustic with phosphor bronze strings. Without that analysis if you told me that those notes were being played on a guitar I'd believe it.

I'm comfortable with focusing on the '70-'73 period because that matches best with what I would expect. But Papa John was alive in the 90's so there is always the possibility that this was a one-of reunion gig and we are hearing the B-50. But there are things in Mr. Casady's lines and playing in the Death clip that are absent from the B-50 clips I have heard. I believe I read an interview in which he said he played an acoustic bass differently. He talked about playing "less busily" and leaving space in the lines for the harmonics and overtones to be heard. Stylistically Death does not sound like that to me.

My sense of Mr. Casady's professionalism and musicianship suggests this is an instrument that was known to be played regularly and not a one shot experiment that we are lucky to have a clip of. But in a world where we may have fossils from a single day when/after the comet hit, this possibility does not seem that unusual.

I'm discounting the Alembic just because I hear something in Death that I associate with hollow bodies and have never heard from a solid bodied instrument. But I have never used active Alembic electronics so they could be creating that sound (in which case there is a candidate for One Bass to Rule Them All that I need to explore).

Good thread and I applaud everyone for making the distinction between subjective opinion and absolute fact that is often lacking in discussions elsewhere on the internet :)
 

fronobulax

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I agree, I think Jack just has it dialed in to best complement Jorma's unplugged flattop sound.
The other half of that show:

It was actually '69 in the studios of the local SF National Educational Television station KQED.
They had some rather "edgy" bands in their studio in the day, somebody in their management was fond of the counterculture:
http://moviemagg.blogspot.com/2019/01/west-pole-kqed-tv-kqed-experimental.html
Ralf Gleason even used their studios to produce a JA television concert, "Go Ride The Music" which yielded the bootleg Up Against the Wall M----------ers:
e1f038f0-7247-463d-ab12-887933e56a5f

http://moviemagg.blogspot.com/2019/01/go-ride-music-national-educational.html


So I read the moviemagg links and they both refer to performances and recordings by the Airplane. I always understood the Hesitation Blues and Mann's Fate clips to have come from a folk music show and they are obviously a duet. After spending way too much time searching I will claim that they were part of a series called "Folk Guitar with Laura Weber" that was produced at/by WQED in the '60's and early 70's.
 

adorshki

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So I read the moviemagg links and they both refer to performances and recordings by the Airplane. I always understood the Hesitation Blues and Mann's Fate clips to have come from a folk music show and they are obviously a duet. After spending way too much time searching I will claim that they were part of a series called "Folk Guitar with Laura Weber" that was produced at/by WQED in the '60's and early 70's.
Right about the folk music show which was correctly credited on the "Mann's Fate" YouTube page, was just pointing out KQED was quite supportive of the SF counter-culture music scene "in the day".***
51hgELEYKWL._SX394_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

I was fortunate enough to have seen that show when the Airplane were at the top of my favorites, and truthfully at the time I much preferred Volunteers.
But figured that clip would be germane here.
***The very early Big Brother and the Holding Company videos I post here periodically for the S-50 sighting were filmed there too and incorrectly cited as 1968 depending on the source:

Actual date April 25th '67. (And they even went on to play a concert that night):
https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/big-...7/kqed-studios-san-francisco-ca-1bc78d54.html
On a KQED series featuring local talent called "Come Up The Years", coincidentally enough.
Music historian Richie Unterberger praised the unusual interpretation in his All Music review of Ball & Chain, the VHS of the KQED broadcast:
"A big bonus is the berserk psychedelic instrumental treatment of “Hall of the Mountain King,” with thrilling, even avant-garde feedback/ distortion duels between [guitarists] Sam Andrews and James Gurley. At the point it was broadcast, this particular bit may well have been the most outrageous rock & roll ever televised."
 
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adorshki

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Might just be that years of "hearing" an acoustic bass on this recording makes my ears refuse to hear anything different. Again, I could see this being the Alembic Mission Control bass or maybe that sunburst Starfire, but it's definitely a set of roundwound strings on there
Reminds me of my conviction that "Spare Chaynge" (as well as "Won't You Try") on Baxter's HAD to be his Starfire purely er, based on the tone .
Sounds like a woody hollow-body-to me, right?
It helped that I never knew about his Jazz bass (Baxter's was actually the album that really turned me on to 'em in late '68 and by then photos of 'em all showed the Starfire) until I joined here and was put right by Mgod.
Apparently he did acquire the SF in time for the sessions but his own recollection was that although he took it to the studio and may have even made some tape, Baxter's was done with the Fender.
All by way of reminder that when it comes to Jack, it's absolutely the Indian not the arrow.
And even though it's been linked here before, couldn't hurt to repeat this great interview for a refresher on what happened to his original SF basses and when:
http://www.flyguitars.com/interviews/jackCasadyGuildBass.php
Might help the ID process for the clip you originally asked about?

Typo noted. WQED was definitely more of my East Coast experience.

And understandable as apparently they were an "NET" station too.
For the sake of good forum citizenship I steered it back to Jack's original SF basses with that link to the Fly interview
:friendly_wink:
 
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Guildedagain

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From the comments;


"I believe it's from a radio show in 71 or 72 - and Papa John left in 73, so it' s earlier than that ! Jack played his trusted Alembic modifyed Guild Starfire bass in the first years of Hot Tuna - see the great duo clips from 1970. "

Freakin great song, have I never heard of these guys?

Definitely never heard this.

All sonic obsessions aside, I could see my bone stock '71 P bass relic making every single one of those sounds. The p'up is obnoxiously hot (10.60kΩ through the jack) and I always have the volume rolled back 1/4". If I turn it up the rest of the way, you can get the most beautiful natural distortion, as well as seriously slam the input of old tube amps like Ampegs, SUNN, etc... and possibly do speaker damage on the low E below the 5th fret if you were not careful.
 
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Guildedagain

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Right about the folk music show which was correctly credited on the "Mann's Fate" YouTube page, was just pointing out KQED was quite supportive of the SF counter-culture music scene "in the day".***
51hgELEYKWL._SX394_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

I was fortunate enough to have seen that show when the Airplane were at the top of my favorites, and truthfully at the time I much preferred Volunteers.
But figured that clip would be germane here.
***The very early Big Brother and the Holding Company videos I post here periodically for the S-50 sighting were filmed there too and incorrectly cited as 1968 depending on the source:

Actual date April 25th '67. (And they even went on to play a concert that night):
https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/big-...7/kqed-studios-san-francisco-ca-1bc78d54.html
On a KQED series featuring local talent called "Come Up The Years", coincidentally enough.
Music historian Richie Unterberger praised the unusual interpretation in his All Music review of Ball & Chain, the VHS of the KQED broadcast:
"A big bonus is the berserk psychedelic instrumental treatment of “Hall of the Mountain King,” with thrilling, even avant-garde feedback/ distortion duels between [guitarists] Sam Andrews and James Gurley. At the point it was broadcast, this particular bit may well have been the most outrageous rock & roll ever televised."


When I first heard them (vinyl) I was blown away, thought they were amazing, this is at 12? Later in life I had to endure comments about what a lousy band they were and couldn't even play their guitars...

Listening to them puts a smile on your face, and then, a period B&W film, filmed by an artist in their own right. My, how so many things have changed...

At 10:00 or so, you realize that there are probably two kinds of people, the ones who hate it, and the ones who think it's magic...

At 12:00 I realize how much they [quite possibly] influenced me as a guitar player, like wt? All of those riffs I've been tripping people out with for decades now, the same ones? Chills...
 
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fronobulax

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From the comments;


"I believe it's from a radio show in 71 or 72 - and Papa John left in 73, so it' s earlier than that ! Jack played his trusted Alembic modifyed Guild Starfire bass in the first years of Hot Tuna - see the great duo clips from 1970. "

For some of us the conversation is about trying to validate that claim :)

For your listening pleasure, another Hesitation Blues clip, this from a teaching video circa 1990. But the only question about Mr. Casady's bass is whether it is still a B-50 or a B-30 since I have difficulty telling them apart from just pictures. The reason for including it here is to see whether anyone agrees with my assertion that Mr. Casady does change his style on an acoustic bass.

 

adorshki

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The reason for including it here is to see whether anyone agrees with my assertion that Mr. Casady does change his style on an acoustic bass.
Oh absolutely.
Didn't he even say it in an interview somewhere?

At 12:00 I realize how much they [quite possibly] influenced me as a guitar player, like wt? All of those riffs I've been tripping people out with for decades now, the same ones? Chills...

"Oh Sweet Mary" on Thrills was my favorite cut.
ABSOLUTELY influenced me.
In fact I wouldn't have understood Baxter's if I hadn't been nursed on Thrills.
Then a buddy introduced me to:
R-3020865-1320305631.jpeg.jpg

After that there was no hope for me.
 

fronobulax

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Didn't he even say it in an interview somewhere?

Did you forget a smile?

I'm comfortable with focusing on the '70-'73 period because that matches best with what I would expect. But Papa John was alive in the 90's so there is always the possibility that this was a one-of reunion gig and we are hearing the B-50. But there are things in Mr. Casady's lines and playing in the Death clip that are absent from the B-50 clips I have heard. I believe I read an interview in which he said he played an acoustic bass differently. He talked about playing "less busily" and leaving space in the lines for the harmonics and overtones to be heard. Stylistically Death does not sound like that to me.
 
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