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Life
With A Thunderbird
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I bought my Gibson Thunderbird back in May 1977 but the story goes back a few years before that. I’ve been a Wishbone Ash fan since 1972 and their first bassist, Martin Turner, always used Thunderbird basses. He had a few natural finished ones and a beautiful white one but even though I saw the band live on a number of occasions, I didn’t feel the desire to acquire a T.Bird for myself. One of the bands I was really into in the early to middle 70’s was a band called Greenslade, that had the great Tony Reeves on bass. Tony used a blond Fender Telecaster bass with a maple neck in this band in preference to his old Gibson EB bass that he’d previously used in Colosseum. Seeing Tony with his Tele inspired me to get a Fender Precision with a maple neck and I used this bass as my main axe for a while. Then I went to a Dave Greenslade concert (he’d gone solo after Greenslade broke up) and saw Tony using a Thunderbird. I just had to have one!!!!!!! I looked through the Melody Maker (a must buy British weekly music rag) and found a shop in West London selling a black ’76 anniversary’ model for just under 600 pounds. The first thing I noticed about this ultra cool looking 34 inch scale bass was that it’s a very neck heavy instrument. I was forced to develop a technique where my right elbow pushed down on the back of the body to help my left arm to support the neck of the beast. The weight of the neck (actually the problem is probably the body shape and weight) really hampers technique in a big way unfortunately but this is really the only bad point about the instrument. I particularly enjoyed the shape of the neck and could never understand why John Entwistle (The Who’s monster bassist, also known as The Ox) customised his Thunderbirds by ripping the necks off (they’re neck throughs by the way) and installing Fender necks on them. The only Fender neck I enjoy is the Jazz neck but I feel that the Thunderbird’s neck is even better than that of the Jazz bass. Truss rod adjustment is at the head end of the instrument. One other bad point is about the case that the bass comes in. With the neck being so heavy (or body being so light), the front of the case actually drags along the floor as you walk with it – I have no idea why Gibson couldn’t have positioned the handle a few centimetres to the left so that the case was more balanced – poor show Gibson!!!! One of the really terrific things about this bass is it’s bridge – a wonderful piece of no-nonsense simplistic American engineering – pure delight – so different from the finicky German engineered bridge on my Warwick Streamer with its one billion and one adjustment screws. The control area is very neat with just three knobs in a straight line and the front mounted jack plug socket.
Awesome, is the only way to describe
the sound of this instrument. It’s tonal range is quite wide from a deep
thunderous low (as it’s name would suggest) to a surprisingly bright
‘toppy’ sound that John Entwistle favours so much. Playing the Thunderbird
bass is fun fun fun – it’s fundamentally (no pun intended) a rock
instrument from the sound to the outrageous dimensions – very definitely
not a slappers instrument. This bass looks even cooler onstage if the
guitarist happens to be playing a Firebird!!!!!!!! This instrument holds
it’s price very well in the market place and the older models, if kept in
good condition, will demand the same price as the new ones. Unfortunately
I didn’t get to see my ‘bird’ much for the last 20 years that I owned it –
it was living in it’s case in my parents house in England with my other
‘bird’ – a B.C. Rich Mockingbird bass ( I’ll tell you about this bass -
it’s actually semi-famous - some other time) so I eventually sold it to
finance my recording activities down here. |
