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More purple orange
British gear manufacturer Orange Amps is releasing a Glenn Hughes signature edition of their O Bass guitar. On the cursory view, this edition does not significantly differ from the stock guitars, apart from the cosmetics — the bass was previously available in orange and black, while the GH edition is purple. Oh, and about £150 more expensive.
A couple of years ago this company has already released a Glenn Hughes signature amp — also in purple trim, without any other visible modifications from the stock one.
More details on the bass can be found on Glenn’s website.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
I can see Uwe’s wife rolling here eyes AGAIN, ‘Oh no, what are you going to do with that one’ ha ha ha. Not to mention all the extra dusting & polishing. Uwe have you no mercy, compassion & empathy? Cheers.
January 14th, 2024 at 03:42Wow…
And people complained that the original Fender Telecaster looked like a boat-oar / paddle…
I’m not sure I’d want my name on any of those, but the gesture is nice …
As usual, black-is-best within that range to my eyes…
And officially from Orange…
qt.”Designed in the heart of London’s West End by Orange technical director and lead designer Adrian Emsley, the O Bass was inspired by Emsley’s deep love and knowledge of classic gear as well as his time spent working with bass players in 1990s Los Angeles. Emsley wanted something lightweight, long-scale, and with a classic tone, and so made his dream bass accordingly”.
No doubt Glenn agrees with the above quote, & if not, the royalty cheque will be welcome lol !
Peace !
January 14th, 2024 at 04:56Naw, I’m not tempted. Glenn is essentially a Fender bass player (I’m from the other faculty and prefer Gibson, especially Thunderbirds, or Rickenbacker 4001/4003), and though he dabbles with other brands now and then, he always reverts back to Fender or Fender style instruments (“Boutique Fenders”).
The garish finish and the mock-Les Paul body look (with a huge lower cutaway which is great for upper fret accessability if not for looks) can’t hide the fact that this is basically a dressed up Fender Precision:
(i) bolt-on neck construction for quick note attack (I prefer neck-through or set neck for a smoother cello-like sustain),
(ii) Fender style split-coil humbucker pick-up (standard on many basses, but I never liked the asymmetric look)
(iii) maple neck (I prefer mahogany, again for sustain reasons, I don’t mind a slightly slower tone development, notes don’t have to jump on me).
That all makes sense for a player like Glenn who doesn’t play many long notes, is rhythmically very accentuated with lots of octaves and high sevenths and likes an abrasive, raucous tone. But my style of playing has changed from that (though Glenn was a great influence on me in my early days, but then other people like Jim Lea and Martin Turner came in), it’s more lyrical by now, I like melody on bass, like Martin Turner does here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yRl-Fkg2TU
Possibly by default because I could never play as funky as Glenn!
Until a few years ago, he’s had a signature model from Yamaha btw.
https://www.yamaha.com/allaccess/artists/issue15-hughes_glenn.asp?issue=issue15
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUMPNjgE8i4&t=14s
It really was the same recipe (bolt-on construction + split coil P-Bass pup + maple neck), but I guess the endorsement contract ran out or Glenn wanted – as usual – something new.
That said, I’m sure the O Bass sounds fine and is a good bass. The look is a bit too Duesenberg for me though.
https://www.duesenberg.de/en/
January 15th, 2024 at 03:53Thanks for the Martin Turner nudge, a bass player & lead vocalist who I often forget about when mentioning those two instruments together. I just watched some live clips from 1976. That first album with Laurie Wisefield, “There’s the Rub” has so many exquisite melodies on it. Are they the most melodic twin guitar band I have ever heard, yes most probably particularly that earlier music they did. We must not forget Ted Turner (no relation) the original ‘2nd’ guitarist, he was instrumental in their development & first 4 albums. Cheers.
January 15th, 2024 at 20:13Wishbone Ash’s twin guitar arrangements are head and shoulders above anything other bands of a similar ilk do. Most bands stick to predictable thirds and fifths, WA throw in seconds, fourths, sixths and seventh notes.
https://youtu.be/x5mxbGiFhHg
Ted Turner had great feel, but the twin guitar harmonies were mainly Andy Powell’s and Martin Turner’s do in the first line up. Andy had played in soul bands with horn sections before WA, that’s where he picked up the structuring of harmony lead lines. It’s probably fair to say that Ted Turner found the harmony lead playing with another guitarist a bit limiting after a few years and that it played a role in his departure from WA.
January 16th, 2024 at 01:11@4 @5
Wisbone Ash !?..ahhh
We know Martin Turner was the key songwriter and creative force of the band Turner’s melodic basslines almost like a third lead guitar,Ted progressive bassist ( Intro “The King Will Come” ..two bass lines !!!! )
1983 yers ..
listened and watched for the first time I was WA when they visited Yugoslavia in 1983. Martin was not in WA, in his place (in the middle on stage ) was the great legend ex The Spiders from Mars and Heep Man Trevor Bolder. WA promoted the album “Twin Barrels Burning”, a completely different sound of WA from the romantics hard rock to angry hard rockers .. the first two songs “Engine Overheat” “Can’t Fight Love”, both impressive hard rock cuts, then “Genevieve “, “No More Lonely Nights”, Bolder gold “Hold On”. Then in In Great Britain, metal bands are popular like Iron Maiden, Def Lepprad,Saxon, Judas Priest….there WA was like a train that wants to join the locomotive on NWOBHM I think this classy album went unnoticed, under the radar
What do you think of this rocker album WA”Twin Barrels Burning”?
This isn’t in my top 3 Wishbone Ash albums, but I find it enjoyable to listen to if you’re in a rock mood and want some good guitar and drums ( Steve Upton, What a drummer !!!!. ).
and only the concerts: Laurie Wisefield, Andy Powell, Steve Upton and Trevor Bolder pure fantasy
were better than this recording from The Marquee Club… and here ,a clean five !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRLbS4Q-5oY
January 16th, 2024 at 16:04The thing I really liked about the early 70’s Wishbone Ash was they sounded so English or British, if that is the way to put it. Pastoral even & after the success of There’s The Rub, recorded & produced in the USA, they changed to trying to sound more commercial & like a US ‘rock’ band of sorts. I changed also. Still a good band but that early to mid 70’s is stellar to my ears. I had a look at the 1983 live performance & thanks for that link however it doesn’t sound like the Wishbone Ash that I knew. Not to worry, change we must & they kept going in various formats. Cheers.
January 16th, 2024 at 22:33Ivica, TBB is a fine album, but it’s not a real WA album, a bit like CTTB is a fine album, but not really a DP album. The essence of WA is to me their harmony guitars and singing, Martin Turners lead voice plus his lyrical and melodic bass playing as well as the general Celtic folk flair of the music. TBB tried hard to be American and ZZ Top’ish, they did that well, but who needs WA to do that if there is Foghat (who were Brits as well) already?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AM1iT-_BSs
That said: Trevor Bolder was a great bassist, be it with Bowie, Heep or Ash. He really played lead bass too (especially in his later years with Heep), but more forceful and dense than Martin, less lyrical and tastefully melodic. Andy Powell was a great fan of Trevor, he said “we for the first time had bottom end when Trevor joined”.
Alas!, Andy Powell. He’s a mighty fine guitarist, always liked his terse style and clean tone, also a fine harmony singer, but a lead vocalist he is not. His version of WA today suffers from exactly that. Martin’s voice was the heart and soul of the band. Andy listened to (bad) outside influence and rowed Martin out of the band when the latter refused to add another lead singer. In Germany at least, that ended WA’s era as a filler of medium-sized halls for good, they never regained that status without Martin and from then on played small halls and clubs.
And the balance of power shifted in the band after Martin’s ousting too, Trevor is on record for saying that he was never really happy with the inner band politics of WA (and used his fist chance to get back to Heep where he remained until his untimely death), John Wetton said the same (would you believe that he presented “Heat Of The Moment” to WA as a song and Andy turned it down?) and Laurie eventually regretted pushing Martin out too.
But all that ignored, TBB is a good album and that live vid you posted shows how tight and powerful that line-up was, albeit having lost the charm of the earlier years. I’m personally hooked on this sound of WA’s Wisefield era, I love Martin’s wailing lead vocals:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ3KnSOB80s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Efh-5MX-9es
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh2aNy43pB4
Might have to do with the fact that I first saw them with that line-up in Rüsselsheim in December 1976 – it was a brilliant concert with a crystal-clear sound. That gig was two days after this Rockpalast one here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMH34qH_vyc
January 16th, 2024 at 22:49When Wishbone Ash reunited the original band in the late 1980’s there were some good nostalgic moments. I found this 1990 live concert video, it is a good one. Cheers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U39dabeNEYI
January 16th, 2024 at 23:20PS, Ivica: Steve Upton was a great drummer, true, instrumental for WA’s flowing sound.
He dropped the drum sticks more than three decades ago, never to pick them up again and became a manager/caretaker of a French castle vineyard, notably Miles Copeland’s Chateau Marouatte:
https://sceniclight.com/castle-marouatte-photography-workshop/
https://www.artatthecastle.com/castle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5o4LJuSdQYY
Miles is of course the former manager of bands such as Wishbone Ash and Curved Air, also of a little-known trio going by the name of The Police or some-such-name where his younger brother Stewart did some drumming once. I don’t know what became of them. Anyway, Steve Upton retired from active work a few years ago and now lives in a cottage on the castle grounds enjoying his pension fund. All very Argus if you ask me …
https://www.bhmpics.com/downloads/wishbone-ash-argus-wallpaper/1.925591242s.jpg
January 16th, 2024 at 23:37Yes, the reunion with the two Turners was good if short-lived. At that time Laurie Wisefield was (deservedly) laughing all the way to the bank with Tina Turner and Nokia Night of the Proms, he had become an in demand touring musician. I also saw him with Roger Chapman once, he was great. The band I was playing with at the time were actually the openers and when Laurie passed us on the way to the stage our guitarist quipped “The king has come!” and the diminutive Laurie gave us the sweetest smile and laugh imaginable at that. Laurie was extremely versatile and technically accomplished; according to the (often differing and bickering!) views of both Martin Turner and Andy Powell the most consummate guitarist WA ever had.
That is not to say that Ted Turner, his predecessor and in the reunion also successor was a slouch, not as versatile and experienced (nor as America-influenced in his percussive style) as Laurie, Ted had a great Celtic feel and a wonderful lyrical style. Here you can see them both at 24:20 doing Jailbait (alongside the two guitarists from Martin’s band).
https://youtu.be/NnpQEOlyBtE
Wouldn’t we like to see Ritchie, Steve and Simon like that one day during a version of SOTW?
January 17th, 2024 at 17:38Thanks for the update on Steve Upton & Miles Copeland. Interesting castle & stories from Miles, the peasants about to get married & presenting their wives to ‘Diablo’ to de flower them was humorous to hear these days but not for the bride to be it wouldn’t have been at the time. I didn’t realise Steve Upton retired from the music world, a wonderful drummer he was. We often hear that about certain musicians from that era, getting out after the hard years & everything else that went with it. I remember reading about Miles Copeland taking on Black Sabbath at the late 1980’s time & telling Iommi to give him a really dark & heavy typical Sabbath album. That did eventuate with the Headless Cross album. Although in the USA they didn’t get into it & that was a disaster for the band & no doubt management also. I couldn’t have imagined Copeland would have stayed with them for long, maybe the Tyr album & tour if it lasted that long. Those three guitarist for Wishbone Ash were all wonderful players & I like that down to earth gig there with Ted Turner appearing. Martin Turner was the one when it boils down to it & I have enjoyed watching a few recent performances of his band. He is lucky that he has found a couple of keen guitarists who really get into that early 70’s feel of the band. I much prefer that than the Andy Powell versions but I would say that being a 70’s geek and all. Blackmore, Morse & McBride all together at some down to earth appearance somewhere, interesting thought. It would have to be on Ritchie’s say of course, at a castle somewhere or similar with BN would be the only way I could see that ever happening. And that would mean his missus singing etc. Maybe they could get her to buy a round of drinks & quickly jump into a jam session before she returns. Oh how cruel I can be sometimes. Shame on me for thinking that. Cheers.
January 17th, 2024 at 22:41It’s not like Mrs Blackmore cannot take a step back: I witnessed a BN gig where Ritchie was very inebriated, yet in a still responsive state as well as generally good mood and he just wouldn’t end the electric part of the concert wailing on his Strat forever, swapping instruments with ‘Sir Robert of Normandy’/Bob Curiano, having Bob even sing (not a bad voice at all) and solo on guitar (he hated that, but Ritchie made him do it), playing chestnuts like Hey Joe etc. All with Candice standing playfully impatient in the wings and tapping her foot + puffing her cheeks before at one point grabbing one of the witches’ brooms decorating the stage and beginning to – ever the good housekeeper – sweep the stage floor. Which drew a smile from Ritchie, but he continued with his rock intermezzo unperturbedly (it lasted close to an hour and his drunk playing had some real highlights).
That said, castles are a rare commodity in Florida or Georgia, so any chance of BN playing there and Steve dropping by out of curiosity and getting invited by Candice and Ritchie for a song or two (as I’m sure they would) is slim … OTOH, they do have one famous castle there …
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/p/AF1QipPZ81mR8tZ9Rr3v_V7RztKBMV03BD4MOG86ElMp=s1360-w1360-h1020
January 18th, 2024 at 15:04Nice to hear Blackmore has had an influence on his missus. Sweeping the floor he he he. Although as we know it is Blackmore that wipes or sweeps the floor with other guitarists. Well that is what we were all lead to believe all those decades ago. Good to hear that the Man in Black was in a jolly mood for your concert Uwe & ad libbing on the guitar. He was always interesting doing that in DP & Rainbow. Wonderful melodies etc. Cheers.
January 18th, 2024 at 21:24