Ernie Ball Music Man has honored low-end legend Pino Palladino with three new four-string signature guitars.
Palladino is a maverick who requires no introduction. The revered session bass guitar player, songwriter and producer has carved out a formidable career, working with everyone from Jeff Beck and David Gilmour to John Mayer, Eric Clapton, Nine Inch Nails and even Adele.
Now, Pino – whose connection to the StingRay bass has been the backbone of his musical journey – has been awarded three new signature bass guitars that pay tribute to one of his most cherished instruments: a 1979 fretless StingRay.
Two Artist Series versions – one fretted and one fretless – have been released alongside a more intricate Icon Series variant, which has been dubbed a “museum-grade replica” of the original.
It’s a full-circle moment for the revered bass player, who first crossed paths with a Music Man bass when he was a youngster. But he’d have to wait a few years until he got his hands on one.
“In Wales where I was born, there was a music store,” Palladino explains in a promotional video. “I remember seeing a Music Man bass in the window and thinking, ‘What is that?’ Because I was only familiar with Fender basses.
“I went and checked it out, and the guy who ran the store wouldn’t let young musicians like me pick the instruments up. So I was always ready to try it out but I never got the chance.
“Roll on a whole bunch of years to 1981, I was in New York on a tour with my good friend Jools Holland. I walked into Sam Ash Music Store and I saw this fretless Music Man bass up there on the wall and it just looked so cool.
“I hadn’t really played much fretless bass before that, but I just immediately felt I could play it. It was fun to play so I had to have the bass. I got my tour manager and said, ‘I need 350 bucks now,’ which he wasn’t very happy about.
“Eventually he came up with it and I bought the bass, and I played it that night on the gig. Since I bought that bass, it really changed my career. I became known as a fretless bass player and used that bass exclusively on nearly all the recordings from ’81 through to ’96.”
The Icon Series model recreates this career-altering bass in all its glory. Every detail (read: bangs and scrapes) has apparently been scrutinized and faithfully reproduced, from the aged sunburst finish to the authentic relic’ing, NOS hardware, model-accurate Wales Rugby sticker on the rear, and Pino’s signature on the headstock.
It’s composed from hand-selected poplar bodies and slab rosewood fingerboards (fretless, of course) and offers a custom-wound pickup with ⅝” Alnico V magnets and 42 gauge wire. In other words, it’s exactly like the original.
“This is more than a signature instrument,” Ernie Ball writes of the bass, of which only 15 will be produced. “It’s a faithful time capsule of an artist-defining tool that helped shape the course of modern bass playing.”
For those Palladino fans who aren’t keen on fretless guitars – and aren’t worried about getting all the bells and whistles of the Icon Series model – the two Artist Series models look to offer the same charm.
They too feature a poplar body, with hard rock maple necks and rosewood fingerboards. The unblemished sunburst colorway is joined by a string-through-body bridge with brass saddles, a Graph Tech nut, a micro-tilt three-bolt neck joint and vintage-style Alnico pickups.
The Icon Series Pino Palladino StingRay bass is available for $5,999, while the two Artist versions are priced at $3,499 apiece.
Visit Ernie Ball Music Man to find out more.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
