Hee Haw question

Jay Fagerlie · Post by **Jay Fagerlie** » 29 Sep 2008 7:05 am

I was watching the last episode yesterday....
Sonny James was doing Running Bear.
What kind of bass was that guy playing?
That's the strangest bass I've ever seen

Jay

Ellis Miller · Post by **Ellis Miller** » 29 Sep 2008 10:33 am

Several companies have mad a stand up electric that plays like an upright but is "solid body" and electric. It looked to me like the bass was one of those being played more or less in the position of a standard electric. As an aside, I work with a bass player that uses a upright electric.

Hopefully, some one will chime in with the exact make. I'm not sure.

Stephen Gambrell · Post by **Stephen Gambrell** » 29 Sep 2008 12:21 pm

Looked like an Ampeg "Baby Bass" to me. They're real popular with Latin bands, but I think that's the first time I ever saw anybody playing one sideways.

Bo Borland · Post by **Bo Borland** » 29 Sep 2008 1:42 pm

i didn't see the show but there are a couple of basses that have a "violin " shaped body like the Ampeg..
Jack Bruce plays one, the bass player from BLue Highway also plays a fiddle shaped electric "upright".
I saw a new version that is a neck on a stand...no body

Bill Hatcher · Post by **Bill Hatcher** » 29 Sep 2008 2:24 pm

I did not see the Hee Haw show you are talking about, but I do remember a very out of the ordinary bass that used to show up on TV every now and then and I do believe it might have been some kind of Gibson thing.

Can you post a pic of the bass.

Jay Fagerlie · Post by **Jay Fagerlie** » 29 Sep 2008 2:24 pm

Nope,
Wasn't the Ampeg Baby Bass.
It had what looked like a Fender headstock and bridge cover.
Very strange bass

Jay

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 29 Sep 2008 6:28 pm

Jay Fagerlie wrote:Nope,
Wasn't the Ampeg Baby Bass.
It had what looked like a Fender headstock and bridge cover.
Very strange bass

Possibly an Epiphone "Embassy", or a Gibson "Firebird" (both from the '60s). They both had the 4-on-a-side tuners and a bridge cover.

Leslie Ehrlich · Post by **Leslie Ehrlich** » 29 Sep 2008 10:12 pm

The Gibson Firebird is a guitar. The bass version of the Firebird is called the Thunderbird. Neither one of them are shaped like a fiddle.

The only fiddle-shaped bass that Gibson made was the EB-1, which was a solid body bass with the traditional Gibson headstock.

Stephen Gambrell · Post by **Stephen Gambrell** » 30 Sep 2008 3:48 am

The Ampeg Baby Bass had a cover over the bridge, and also what looks like a strap button at the neck heel. I didn't notice the peghead, I was too busy staring at the rest of that thing! Ampeg made a rather large "Horizontal" bass, as played by Rick Danko in "The Last Waltz," but it had a bass fiddle-shaped headstock. Weird

.

Joe Casey · Post by **Joe Casey** » 30 Sep 2008 4:41 pm

Stephen Gambrell · Post by **Stephen Gambrell** » 30 Sep 2008 5:41 pm

Who made that, Joe?

Jon Moen · Post by **Jon Moen** » 30 Sep 2008 6:05 pm

Here is a Gibson EB-1.

Stephen Gambrell · Post by **Stephen Gambrell** » 1 Oct 2008 6:35 am

Didn't Gibson make a long endpin for one of their electric basses, so it could be stood on the floor, and played like an upright?