The Precision Bass is 75 years old and to mark this landmark occasion Fender has unveiled three anniversary editions of the bass guitar that transformed popular music.
Many instruments – and their makers – overstate their impact on popular culture, but the Precision Bass quite rightly is regarded as a hinge moment for popular music. Taking design cues from the first-mass produced electric guitar, the Fender Telecaster, the P Bass completed the transition from bulky stand-up basses. A new era arrived.
Appropriately, the 75th Anniversary Precision Bass Collection offers three distinct takes on the P Bass. There is the American Vintage II 1951 Precision Bass, which is inspired by the OG model and its Butterscotch Blonde finish and single-ply black pickguard borrowed from the Telecaster. Note the headstock on this, too.
Like the Tele, it’s a primal affair, a slab of ash, a bolt-on maple neck with a thick U profile. We’ve got one 75th Anniversary '51 Single-Coil Precision Bass pickup plus volume and tone controls, a nitro finish, and the Pure Vintage 2-Saddle Precision Bass with fibre saddles and a chrome cover.
Then we have the Player II Precision Bass in Diamond Dust Sparkle, a disco and glam-rock friendly refresh of the top-selling Mexican-made model. The pearloid pickguard tops this off nicely.
It has a solid alder body, maple neck, rosewood fingerboard and a single 75th Anniversary Thunderbolt Precision Bass split-coil pickup with oversized pole pieces for extra oomph. Expect all the usual Player II Series luxuries – the rolled fingerboard edges, the crowd-pleasing Modern C neck profile, the adjustable four-saddle bridge with single-groove steel ‘Barrel’ saddles.
Rounding out the collection we’ve got an American Professional PJ hybrid with dual pickups, a figured maple top, gold hardware, a ’63 P Bass neck profile and a HiMass bridge, and a 2-Color Sunburst finish. This really is exquisite. We’ve got tapered-shaft tuners. The neck is reinforced with Posiflex graphite rods.
And with a 75th Anniversary V-Mod Jazz Bass single-coil at the bridge position and a V-Mod P Bass split-coil at the middle, you’ve got heaps of tone options.
All three in the collection have a commemorative neck plate. Though note the neck plate on the AmPro model; it has been machined as has the heel so that you can get the fretting hand all the way up that rosewood fingerboard.
“The Precision Bass didn’t just change how bass guitar sounded, it changed what was possible in popular music,” says Justin Norvell, chief product officer, Fender. “Seventy-five years later, that legacy is still alive and evolving. With this collection, we wanted to honour every chapter of that story: the swamp ash body and single-coil pickup of the 1951 original, the purposeful evolution that kept the P Bass at the center of music for generations, and the Thunderbolt pickup that suggests the best chapter may still be ahead.
“These are serious instruments built to be played hard, and we’re proud to put them in the hands of the players who will write what comes next.”
All three look and sound pretty special. Sean Hurley is one of the players who has got his hands on them, and the John Mayer bassist certainly does a great job demoing them. Fender’s 75th Anniversary celebrations continue with a video series featuring a number of bass icons all paying tribute to the instrument. The players involved read like a who’s who of bass guitar.
There’s Freddie Washington, whose perspective on the instrument is fascinating given that he transitioned from the upright bass to the Precision Bass.
“When I started playing [the] P Bass, I was hearing this sound on records… I was hearing this thick, rich sound,” he says. “It had a profound effect on how I play coming from the upright bass. It inspires me to play the way I play, the way it sounds, the way it feels. I’ve played on a lot of different records, and I’ve played lines on records that I probably wouldn’t play this way if it was another bass. This bass has given me the ability to go places that I can go any time I want to go.”
Washington played with Herbie Hancock, Michael Jackson, Elton John, BB King and the list goes on. The P Bass served him through all these different gigs, with different styles, just as it did for Black Sabbath’s Geezer Butler. “I tried other basses, but nothing had the balance of a P-bass,” he says. “It becomes part of you.”
Nate Mendel of the Foo Fighters describes the P Bass as “the center of gravity for the bass world”, while Leland Sklar argues that it was life-changing for the player and music fan alike.
It really changed all our lives as bassists
Lee Sklar
“It really made the lives of bass players change,” he says. “It made the lives of audiences change. It really changed all our lives as bassists.”
Tal Wilkenfeld might have been one of those players that Norvell had in mind when he talked about the Precision Bass still having its best years ahead of it. The former Jeff Beck bassist believes there’s a lot more to be discovered on it.
“The idea that the electric bass is only 75 years old is amazing to me,” she says. “It’s such a baby compared to every other instrument. So there’s so much more to explore on the P Bass.”
Everybody loves the Precision Bass. Everybody had something good to say about it. But perhaps the legendary session bassist Bob Glaub (Bruce Springsteen, Steve Miller Band) said it best: “It’s the bass you think of when you go to pick a bass. It’s magic and it really has no limits.”
The 75th Anniversary Precision Bass Collection is available now. The American Vintage II 1951 Precision Bass is priced £2,699/$2,899. The American Professional PJ Bass will set you back £2,549/$2,699, while the Player II P Bass is the most affordable of the three at £999/$1,099.
See Fender for more details.
