Fender Performer Bass
| Fender Performer Bass |
|
| Manufacturer |
Fender |
| Period |
1985 |
| Construction |
| Body type |
Solid |
| Neck joint |
Bolt-on |
| Woods |
| Body |
Alder |
| Neck |
Maple |
| Fretboard |
Rosewood |
| Hardware |
| Pickup(s) |
2 single-coil |
| Colors available |
| Various solid metallic and sunburst finishes |
The Fender Performer was an electric bass guitar released and discontinued in 1985, assembled in Japan.[1] The Performer was also available as an electric guitar.
The Guitar
The Fender Performer bass was a uniquely styled bass guitar, designed by John Page, renowned for its extremely slender neck. It has an alder body, with a bolt-on 34" maple neck and a 24 fret rosewood fingerboard. Controls are: Tone, Volume, Pickup Selector Switch and TBX Circuit Control (Treble Bass eXpander). It was available in Burgundy Mist, Gun Metal Blue, Candy Green, White and Tobacco Sunburst. All finishes were metallic except for the sunburst.
A 5-string version of this bass was released too, though less common.
History
The Fender Performer Bass was designed by John Page to be an Elite version of the Fender Jazz Bass.[2] The instrument was manufactured in Japan in 1985 at a time when Fender was not manufacturing guitars in the USA. Shortly after the launch of this instrument, CBS sold Fender to its employees and production of the Performer ceased. It is rumored that only a few hundred were made and that some were ordered to be destroyed because of a copyright dispute concerning the neck. However there is no credible evidence for this. Because no manufacturing assets were transferred in the sale,[3] forcing the new owners to contract the manufacture of instruments it, is more likely that the new Fender Musical Instruments Corporation simply chose to focus on proven lines.
Collectibility
Once largely ignored by Fender enthusiasts, the Performer has recently grown in popularity and second-hand values. As of 2010, in recent Ebay auctions these instruments have commanded prices as much as US$1000 and higher.
Words from the Designer
The following is from posts[4] that designer John Page made on fenderforum.com:
Yes the Performer was one of my designs. Believe it or not, the Performer bass (designed before the guitar) was designed to be the Elite version of the Jazz Bass... yes that's right... it was going to be the top version of the Jazz Bass... scary huh? The shape of the instrument is derivative of the back of the Strat. Look at the waist cut on the back of the Strat and you'll see where the basic horn/body shape started. At the time (1982-3ish?) I was designing this, Fender was considered a pretty conservative instrument. Kramer, BC Rich and Jackson were building these radically styled instruments, so we wanted to get into that market. In my original design, it used a Strat-style peghead and the pickups were a double Strat humbucking setup. I also designed the Fender logo on the Performer... I can't say that that['s] a good thing, but it was kinda cool to design a new Fender logo. We got some comments that it looked like the Peavy logo, which really pissed me off.
The guitar that was produced was different than the original that I designed. I initially designed it to be made in the US, but it ended up being made in Japan. When that transition happened, things were changed. The peghead went from the Strat to the Swinger, for example, so I don't remember what pickup they actually went with. I angled the pickups to thicken up the top end a bit... and it looked cool. Well, at least to me, I like "off-line aesthetics". Why weren't they successful? Look, I was a designer in Fender R&D for years before I started the CS. I was always trying to design something new and different. When we started the CS, I tried to do the same. Reality is, the public wants Strats, Teles, P & J basses from Fender. So it's really tough to get them to accept any "new & different" designs in any great quantities. I'm afraid I have no idea how many were actually produced.
I designed the five string version when I first came back to start the CS in '87. To the best of my knowledge there was only one protoype made by Fuji Gen Gakki. It was kind of a pinkish color and had the same basic features of the 4 string Japanese model. When I initially designed both basses, the [pickups] were modified Mustang coils, wound beefier and wired to be humbucking. When the four string version was released it used a single coil p/u under each cover. The original also was designed with an angular/massive/fine-tuning bridge, and a "lightning bolt" styled string tree. Both were prototyped but never released. I never heard of any instruments being destroyed for any legal issues... maybe another one of those "legends"? The idea behind the neck was simple, at the time a lot of bass players were guitar player converts. Bass playing style started to have more of a "lead guitar" approach, so the idea of a narrower neck was to help along those lines. The original proto[type] went on the summer before it was released with the then "hottest" bands, Billy Idol (I don't remember his bass player's name) and The CARS bass player, Ben Orr.
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References
- ^ History from www.harmony-central.com
- ^ [1]
- ^ Fender History from www.fender.com
- ^ John Page's Post from www.fenderforum.com
External links
