A while back, someone asked me what my favorite guitar effect was. I thought for a minute and came up with a Fender Bassman and a cord. It just doesn’t get much better than that for an electric guitar sound. I should probably mention that I was thinking of a single coil pickup on the guitar.
For years, when I was a youngster, my rig was a Fender Mustang (bought new in around 1966) and my black-faced Bassman. I bought it used, so I’m guessing it was about a 1964 vintage. It was a piggy-back thing, with the amp on top and a speaker cabinet with 2-12″ speakers. It was a very sweet guitar amp, although not that great of a bass amp.
That old Bassman is long gone. I don’t even remember exactly what happened to it. I’m sure we parted ways sometime in the early ’70’s. That period of my life is quite foggy (I’ve been clean and sober since December 9, 1981).
A few years ago, I found a Music Man 100 head at Sunset Pawn, in Sioux Falls. That amp has some of the same magic that my old Bassman had, plus reverb. Leo Fender sure knew how to make an amplifier.