Wal bass facts'n'figures

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The "HOLY GRAIL" of Wals

The first ever Wal bass (W1111)  - built for Caravan & Quantum Jump bass player John G Perry and featuring the trademark early Wal leather tooled scratchplate with floral designs

The original Wal was something of a "Bitsacaster" - a solid ash body and leather scratchplate but with hardware culled from an old Fender Mustang bass and a Guild for the pickups, Gibson spares and elsewhere...  It was also, as ordered by Perry, a short-scale bass!

The bass, dubbed W1111, was a short scale (30 ¼”), ash bodied bass loosely based on a Gibson EB3 bass, although with a more smoothly rounded shape reminiscent of a Fender Mustang.  The neck is a single piece of beautiful birdseye maple topped with a rosewood fingerboard.  The hardware was culled from a variety of sources – bridge, switches and knobs from a Gibson, rewound Guild and Fender Mustang pickups  and Schaller machine heads.  It was also, like the Gibson basses that Perry favoured, a short scale bass.  However, the most visually striking aspect of the bass was the scratchplate made of hand tooled leather on a metal screening plate.  Clearly a prototype, many of the design elements which would go to make up the early “Pro” series and Mark I custom Wal basses were already in evidence.  Although passive and suffering some matching problems between the two, very different, pickups.  Even so, the bass has a very pleasing sound and has something of the sound of a Wal about it – presumably partly due to Ian’s hand rewinding of the pickups.

John G Perry pictured at Redan Recorders, London recording a session for Gordon Giltrap's "Fear of the Dark" album in 1978 and in Wal Pro Series promotional literature 

   Me playing W1111 at Electric Wood in 2005

JG Custom series bass specifications

Prior to the development of the JG Custom Series basses all Wal basses were custom built basses.  The JG Series, although they codified the basis of what a Wal bass was each one was still effectively a custom built instrument.  The first built was a 32" short scale version for Perry with the serial number JP1111.  The JG basses featured a full 34" scale length.  The JGs were named for the British Session bassist, John Gustafson - known for his singing and playing in the Merseybeats, the Big Three, Roxy Music, the Gordon Giltrap Band, the Ian Gillan Band and the rock musicals, Jesus Christ Superstar and the Butterfly Ball.

JG Custom fretless bass (JG1131) belonging to JG himself! John Gustafson

John Gustafson

John Gustafson using his JG Custom bass live with the Gordon Giltrap Band in 1978

JG Custom Series basses are similar to the Pro Series Basses which followed them (solid ash body and laminated neck etc).  However, the JG Custom basses feature the distinctive leather scratchplates (not all are tooled with the floral patterns - some are plain, see pictures of the Gary Tibbs bass below) common to early Wals.  Scratchplates on the Pro Series were plastic mounted on a metal backing plate.  On the JG Custom Series basses the tone shaping switches were mounted on the pickup surrounds rather than the scratchplate (as on the Pro series).  Most JG Customs also featured a decorative maple headstock facing.

Left - Flamed maple faced JG Custom Series headstock

Right - Solid ash body with plain leather scratchplate

The blonde, ash bodied JG Custom bass (JG1147) pictured above and to the left has a plain leather scratchplate.  The tone shaping switches were mounted on the pickup surrounds.  The controls were much as on the later Pro series.  Upper row, right to left - Master volume, Neck pickup volume, Bridge pickup volume.  Lower row, right to left - Neck pickup tone, Bridge pickup tone.

The "Pick attack" switch  seen next to the Neck pickup tone control was a feature of only a few JG Custom basses. 

Right - John Entwistle's JG Custom Bass with floral scratchplate.  Far Right - Gary Tibbs' JG Custom with plain leather scratchplate.

Our thanks go to the Bunnybass website for permission to use their beautiful photos of the Gary Tibbs JG Custom bass.

In late 2004  a very early JG Custom series bass came to light in the UK through an e-Bay auction.  This JG was numbered JG1113 which implies that it was the fourth JG custom series bass ever made.  See below for more on numbering...

JG1113 has a beautiful blue sunburst finish with a floral, leather tooled scratch-plate.  The paint job is original.  This was originally a natural ash bass, ordered by session bassist and multi-instrumentalist, Pete Zorn, who at the time was bass player in Barbra Dickson's band.   However, the stain certainly is striking, setting off the light brown scratchplate beautifully.  It has also allowed us to have a close look at exactly how the tooling is done and the tone filter switches on the pickup surrounds.  The bass was bought by Mike Gutierrez from Arizona in the US who had it lovingly restored before passing it on to another Wal enthusiast.  Mike also owns the Entwistle JG (JG1128) pictured here, giving him an amazing (and surely unique) collection of these rare basses.

Above - JG Custom Bass (JG1113) with tooled leather floral scratchplate and blue sunburst finish.
Below left - The translucent blue sunburst finish brings out the natural grain of the solid ash body.  Below middle & below right -   Typical JG Custom series headstock - large paddle profile, laminated but without dark, amazonian hard wood stringers.  This JG Custom bass has no decorative facings on the headstock (unlike Gustafson's bass)

Below - Close-up of the JG1113 scratchplate showing the tooling and pick-up mounted switches