First stop – who were the authors? I can’t find out anything for certain about them although I note that Harvey Vinson also wrote books in the same series on lead and rhythm guitar (which my Dad later added into his collection) so it’s possible he was more of an all-round guitarist and Jim Gregory was more of a bass specialist. Vinson also wrote a number of other guitar orientated books.

I’ve turned up references to Bass Guitar being first published in 1973, making it even more unlikely that web searching will give me much more about the authors. If anyone does have more information, I’m curious but, for now, can proceed by judging the content rather than the authorship! They must have known something about bass playing because they did help set me on my own journey.

Let’s have a quick look at the introduction, which includes the sentence: “The electric bass, as we now know it, has been in existence for only two decades”! That backs up the 1973 date and also puts things in perspective. With the first P bass coming out in 1951, I’ve now got more playing history after the point I started on the instrument than had passed when I first picked up this book! Opposite the introduction is a full page black and white photo of Felix Pappalardi (bassist with Mountain but with a longer set of credits as a producer until his untimely death in 1983) and it is one of the memorable things about this tome – no colour inside but some wonderful pictures to capture that twenty year history (and, for some reason, one of Charles Mingus on upright bass on p.18).

Flicking over the page, there’s a page about getting started, faced by a photo (uncredited) of someone sitting down playing a P bass. Perhaps one of the authors? The advice is to sit down to practice: “Cross your legs and rest the rounded indentation of the bass on your right thigh…”. I can only presume this was before left-handed bassists were invented? Of course, there had been plenty including somewhat famous figures such as Paul McCartney. I wonder how many subsequent books make the same assumption? As a right hander, it wasn’t a problem for me but I feel for those who prefer to lead with the left.

One of the things that dates this book is that it came with a flexible plastic record. That is long-lost and I’ve got a feeling I transferred it onto cassette tape (also lost). Over the page, the record comes into play as a tuning reference. I’m pretty sure I got my Dad’s help tuning for the first time, as the instructions are pretty skimpy. It doesn’t even tell you how turning the tuning pegs can make the strings tighter or looser or to be careful not to tighten the string too much!

After that, you are instructed to learn the names of the four open strings and to pluck them with the index or middle finger of the right hand (more anti-left bias) before the learning how to play a 12 bar blues progression in A (just using the E, A and D strings) and then playing it along with a track on the record. Instructional notes include making sure you are playing the right strings, being in tune and playing in time. And, like that, by the bottom of p.11, it is time for your first gig or at least, “if it sounds all right”, to go onto the next chapter.