Gear Discussion Forums > Gibson Basses
Glenn Cornick bass timeline pre-JT through Wild Turkey and Paris - updated
Denis:
In my last post about Glenn's basses, I wrote "As my last comment to this thread for now, I'll go ahead and mention that he used a 'Gibson EB1 reissue in about 1975 which I used with the band Paris though I didn't use it on record - I used an Eccleshall (British Custom Luthier) reverse Thunderbird using all the parts from the green non-reverse T Bird for the first Paris (1975) album played through a Pignose!'" and mentioned that I had not located photos of these basses.
However, I believe I have located a photo of the Eccleshall Thunderbird which the company built for him. The photo only appeared in searches on my desktop, not my iPhone. The image itself was simply called "GlennCornickTomPeterson". I also found a couple of references to a leather bodied Thunderbird in links on the Eccleshall website but none of the links led to this bass. Given the references and the file name including both Glenn's and Tom's (Tom is a well known bass collector), I am pretty certain this is the Eccleshall Glenn referenced in his FlyGuitars interview.
I have emailed the company for confirmation.
Notice the Gibson Thunderbird pickup, tuners, bridge, tailpiece and truss rod cover. The volume and tone knobs are from Gibson basses used on most models in the 1970s and 1980s.
Denis:
When it rains it pours. I found another photo of this bass in the hands of Robby Scharf, how was not a Cowsill but played bass with the band for some time. The photo I found, taken by Damon Wall on 05/04/2001 shows Scharf with the bass, described as a "1971 Eccleshall Thunderbird". It's clearly the same bass as the photo above, BUT if it was built in 1971 it could not be the same bass Glenn had IF Eccelshall built it for him for Paris' first album in 1975.
Also, if the bass in the photo is shown as it was when new, with all original parts, it could not have been built in 1971 as those control knobs were not used by Gibson until late 1973 when the Rippers were introduced. If that's the case, "1971" could simply be a typographical error and it might be Glenn's bass after all.
Being from the Paris days, photos of Glenn are pretty scarce and I have yet to find a photo of him with this bass.
Denis:
That's it for now. Keep in mind again that I posted this on a Jethro Tull forum, NOT a guitar forum so some specifics are old new to you guys.
And as things get updated, corrected, added to, etc I will do it here.
Drew told me that I probably have a better idea of this timeline than he does, but he offered to help me put together a timeline of the basses his dad used for the last 30 years. That could be fun and I hope we can work it out!
Chris P.:
Great story and great finds. Although I don't like the music, I do like those stories!
My 2cts:
On the strange reversed V, the blocks don't look like Fender Jazz blocks. Too small?
Fender versus Gibson: the Thunderbird case. I think there was never a lawsuit or anything? It was just Gibson wanted a more conventional guitar and bass?
bassilisk:
I agree about the Jazz blocks. That's not a Fender neck. Even at that view angle the blocks don't appear long enough.
Here's a '73 for ref:
I am curious as to what neck that could be from though..
This is a great read. JT is still one of my favorite bands to this day and the bass work was always exemplary.
I don't know anything about GC - it's nice to add some depth to one of those responsible.
I am looking forward to more. :popcorn:
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