It was fascinating to learn Glen Campbell played the guitar sounding solo on Carol Kaye's Danelectro six string bass. That is also the bass Carol Kaye played on the recording. One instrument, two excellent musicians and two completely different sounds.
Something like that but not exactly.
According to Carol, her DanO was heavily modified, otherwise, these hollow bodied, Formica guitars would collapse under the tension of the strings of the day — she pushed back when I asked her by whom
('How do you expect me to remember…"). Glen had told me years ago that he played it on a bass customized by Semie Mosley. Since then, I've always assumed that's who did the work. I recently had a mutual friend ask if Semie did that work and he was rebuffed with
"How do you expect…". Anyway, if solid body as the article claims, it's because someone stuck a plank of lumber inside to make it so.
The DanO was her "tick bass". When she used it only, there was someone else playing a Precision (and often an upright) alongside.
The Beat Goes On. is a great example with her on the DanO—she mentions the P-bass and upright players in her book but I don't have that handy.
Anyway, Carol Kaye plays the seven note intro on her DanO and then doubles her Precision throughout the rest of the cut—sometimes unison; a few passages up the octave.
It was nice to crank up my studio monitors and hear both bass lines clearly this afternoon—and hear the difference between Ms Kaye's and Glen's pick attacks on the same instrument. I absolutely loved this track in the summer of 1968. My dad was working at AMPEX by then but that was a year or so before I'd go in with him where I could listen to some of my records in unused test rooms.
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