JG1117 - Phillip Knight's JG bass.
JG1113 - Pete Zorn's JG bass
JG1117
It's funny how sometimes life stores things up and then
throws them at you in one big lump. Sometimes it's life's woes, sometimes its
blessings and sometimes it's just quirky little happenstances. It was only a
week or so after Martin Elliott had emailed me out of the blue about his
encounter with John Gustafson's JG bass that a post went up on the Wal Facebook
fan page. The post, from bassist Martyn Baker said that he was thinking of
putting his JG bass up on eBay as it was, literally, just gathering dust and
deserved to go to a good owner. The bass eventually sold for a tidy sum -
£7,400 to be precise! A hefty price tag but one that reflects the ownership of
a little bit of bass history.
This all caused not a little consternation and discussion
online but also brought a few other owners out of the woodwork to post their
beauties alongside it. More of those other JG basses (both from later in the
short-lived model's run) in a future post. However, JG1117, built in May 1977, offers a good
opportunity to look at what made up a JG bass before Wal and Pete slightly
refined the design after JG1118.
Martyn filled in a little background to the bass. He was
the second owner and had owned the bass since the late 1980s. "I have
owned the bass since 1988. After buying it in London I decided to take it up to
the Electric Wood factory in High Wycombe. Ian Waller picked me up from the
station, and set it up perfectly in one afternoon. Such a shame that he died so
so soon after that - he seemed like a really great guy."
