FENDER PRECISION BASS: The Fender Precision Bass, known as "P-bass" for short, is an early model of the electric bass designed by by Leonidas Clarence Fender (Leo Fender) on the electronics and his team crafting the body and neck, and brought to market in 1951. Althought the Precision Bass was first presented some 15 years after the original solid body, fretted, horizontal, electric bass produced by the Audiovox Manufacturing Company in Seattle, Washington, the Precision Bass enjoys the status of being the first mass-produced and commercially successful electric bass. In its stock configuration, it is a solid body instrument equipped with one single-coil electronic pickup. The Precision Bass is the most popular electric bass of all time, and is still being manufactured today. The Standard model P-bass is sanded, painted and assembled in Ensenada, Mexico along with the other Standard Series guitars. Similar to Jimi Hendrix's effect on the popularity of the Stratocaster, the early adoption of the electric bass was in part due to Bill Black's ownership. Double bassist on the first Elvis Presley recordings, Black was coming to grips with a Precision Bass at the time the Jailhouse Rock film was made. Legend has it that Bill just couldn't get the bass line right on the smaller instrument, and the bass track was everything to the number. In a temper, which was rare for him, he threw the guitar down and walked out. Elvis then picked it up and played the part himself. Bill later made a complete transition to the electric bass and never looked back. (RAB Hall Of Fame, http://www.rockabillyhall.com/BillBlack1.html) The electric bass had a major effect on popular music. The double bass (also called upright bass) is a very difficult instrument to master, is physically cumbersome, difficult to transport, and by the late 1930s was increasingly hard to hear with big horn sections or next to resonator or amplified guitars. With electric pickups and a small body, the precision bass was easy to move around and simple to amplify. The electric bass also produced a different timbre than the double bass: a more focused sound, harder edged, with less percussive thump and more clearly articulated. By bringing the sound of the bass out front of a group or combo, the bass became more dominant in its role and transformed the beat and rhythm of pop music. James Jamerson, the legendary Motown bassist, is a primary example: what became known as the Motown beat would not have been possible without the electric bass. Overall, the electric bass made for more driving rhythms and was essential to the evolution from jump blues/swing to rhytm and blues, and rock music. The electric bass is perhaps the most significant of the Fender company's innovations in terms of the way it changed popular music. Prepared by: Benrockerman