The new limited edition of The Gibson Bass Book is here

[Basvarken]

Went to a John Waite concert in the city of Arnhem last night.
His voice has held up amazingly well. It was a great show. A combination of acoustic and electric arrangements.
He had a special guest musician sharing the stage on two songs: Rinus Gerritsen!

I took the opportunity to give Rinus the third edition of the Gibson Bass Book. He received the official first one, six years ago at the presentation party of the book at Gibson HQ in Amsterdam.
Told him he can burn the first edition this winter to try and save on gas cost (prices have gone up factor 4 over here)

And I brought an extra copy of the book just in case I could hand one over to John Waite. I figured him being a bass player he would probably be interested too.

Turns out he really still loves the bass. He still has the famous Zemaitis bass he sported back in the seventies with The Babys. And he told me he writes his songs on the bass a lot.
When he saw the pic on the cover of the book he said: "ah the EB-2D!"
So he really knows a thing or two about Gibson basses!

[Grog]

Congrats! Great story!

[Dave W]

Very cool!

[gearHed289]

Super cool. He's got a great voice. He is also responsible for my interest in Les Paul style basses, having seen him on TV playing one (the Zemaitis) when I was first starting out. I thought that bass had been stolen? Maybe he got it back, or there were two different ones?

[OldManC]

Very cool. I was a big fan of both the Babys and his solo career. I used to go see his shows whenever he played in LA, but it's been over 20 years since the last time. I'm glad to hear he still plays bass (I was bummed when the Babys got Ricky Phillips instead). 

[uwe]

You watch Rob get famous with that book!

John Waite is my favorite Don Henley voice outside of the Eagles.

Seriously, I really like his music too. And he's wry about the inevitable comparison:

One thing I noticed about you, and other singers who aren't born in America, is you have a great tone when you sing. I was recently comparing you to Don Henley the other day. I said to my friend, "John Waite is just as good as Don Henley."


Oh, I'm better (laughs).

But you don't get the credit for it and that's a big part of the reason why I wanted to do this interview. I think your tone is perfect. And the thing that I find interesting is whether it's Tom Jones or whether it's you, or another singer, a lot of times the diction of singers who aren't from America is better than the diction of those who were born here.


Yeah, it's funny. And you mentioned Tom; he really rips it up, he's great. I mean, he's really great. I don't know. You look at Steve Marriott and Paul Rodgers, I mean, maybe you need to come from outside to bring something to it to make it bigger than what it is. I don't know.

I was very conscious when I first came to America that there was a white-band thing where they were playing music that was kind of white. But in England we were all listening to blues, blues rock. I was just thinking, before I called, about the jukebox at my local coffee hangout when I was a kid. I was 14 and they had music by Otis Redding, the Temptations, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, you name it. But it was 99.9% American. Although my heritage is British, my heart is really American.

[uwe]

This is purdy.

[Basvarken]

A good song in any form.
I do think that in this version the twelve string guitar(?) clamouring for attention a bit too much.
John's voice and the guitar don't gel very well, in my opinion.

[uwe]

Yeah, I know what you mean, what the guitar plays is perhaps a bit overwrought/too worked out, more cerebral than natural.