Tom Garden with one of his newest handmade basses featuring quilted maple and a sleek lightweight design and top of the line hardware
Ask any bass player, and he’ll tell you that his job is the least respected in the band. Musically speaking, the bass takes care of the low end; and those who don’t know any better may think this position really is low end. Did Elvis play bass? Willie Nelson? Guys like Jimmy Page and Carlos Santana didn’t exactly summon an entire generation toward bass playing – they inspired kids to pick up a standard six string for stadium-filled solo guitar playing.
The bass gets little attention. In the movie “That Thing You Do” the bass player in the band never had a name, and gets credited as, “T. B. Player.” Now that I think about it, there’s no video game called “Bass Guitar Hero” either, as far as I know.
But when you hear someone like Victor Wooten play the bass, you just might be inclined to go, “Wow, I never knew the bass could sound so refined.” There’s hope yet. 
