It's Bass Lab Legend time!
For this month, we have a long time Bass Lab PLUS member. For those who don't know, the Bass Lab PLUS membership has been around for about 5 years now, and this member has been around since the very beginning!
I'm so proud to introduce Bill Bedford as the Bass Lab PLUS Legend for the month of May.
We'll get to know how Bill got started on the bass, and some of the bass gear that he had.
Also, we'll touch on why Bill left the Bass Lab PLUS and then still came back. We'll also know what's next in Bill's bass playing career.
Watch the video below to know more about Bill's story!
J: Hey everybody! It’s time to welcome this month’s BLP Legend. This guy has really been super supportive of the BLP community; a really good egg as we say in the UK now for quite a number of years. It’s really a pleasure to give this month’s BLP Legend to Bill Bedford over at the US
B: Hey! I’m doing good! How’s everybody doing?
J: Great! Now let’s go over your story as this is instrumental to everything. How did you become a bass player?
B: I was in to music as a kid; started 8 years old on trombone. Went to formal lessons, when through music programs in school. From 8 until graduation of highschool, I stayed with the music that way. Then I joined a disco band after that for about a year and a half; a 7 piece band, that was really fun, playing trombone still. I was around bass players and that was cool too. That kinda fizzled out, as all bands do. I met my wife, went into the HVAC field and all that.
About 35 years later, hooked up with some guy and he had a bunch of instruments around. He was like “ Wanna try this “. I was like “ wooooooow “ ! It was a Peavey Foundation bass. It was really sweet, I kinda fell in love with it. He won’t let me have it,so I kinda bought myself a used one. It was kinda really cool bass, with a thin neck and all. Started playing with that; didn’t have a formal direction or anything, playing around the internet. I kinda lost a little interest; your job takes you away, your life takes you away. I ended up giving the bass to my daughter, at that time her husband. They were married at that time. He played around with it and stuff. After some time, I kinda wanted it back but at that point he had given it away to somebody else; it was all gone. I had a trailer when we were camping years later and my daughter came up to visit us at the campsite on fathers day. She presented me with a father’s day present; it was an acoustic RC Rich bass. Not a lot of low-end, but still a bass. I’m like “ wooooooow”!
I kinda got into it and I got the best I could get out of it. A couple of months later I bought a 5 string Dean. That’s a beast! I still have it; I’m gonna try bringing that back in the videos. I got used to that, and then I got my Fender Jazz, I love that one. I also have a Squier now as a back-up bass and I love that one too. What got me into the bass part was I always loved bass. I was in Jazz bands like in school, stage bands and marching bands, which while they didn’t have the bass, they have tubas and stuff. I really like the low end sound.When I picked up that Peavey Foundation bass I thought this is great! This is awesome!
As a matter for fact, going back to that acoustic bass. I did my first video on YouTube with that acoustic bass. In fact if you go to my YouTube Channel Bill Bedford, go to my very first video. You’ll see me sitting in the trailer with that acoustic bass. You actually gave me a couple of pointers. I was starting out with Bass Lab.
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J: What improvement have you seen over this 4 / 5 years of being a member?
B: Where do I start? I feel so much more comfortable with the bass. I’ve learned to play more by ear. I’m still a little stubborn on some things. I’m gonna get them down, but as far as my tone, my confidence is really high. I’ve been in a very small for a couple of years. You don’t really work much but we jam a lot so that’s fun. Now I could just jump in; I’m not terrified. I just play and I don’t get too many bad remarks.
J: I’m gonna touch on something here that nobody really touches on. You actually left the bass for a while. You went off to pursue some other things. Then you came back! It was a real treat for me as I guess it shows we’re doing something good. I’d love you to explain what happened and what drew you back.
B: Oh you really put me on the spot there! I had some things going on around the house. Just got a little busy, that's one reason.
I saw another bass group; an educational group. I decided maybe I’m ready for this. After a very short amount of time, maybe I am ready but I didn’t like the format. I didn’t like too much of the community. Everybody was respectful to each other but it just didn’t have that home feeling to me.[/bg_collapse]