'59 Fender Bassman & RI - Why?

[Ray Beltran <raybeltran@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

So here's what I want to know...
Why is the '59 Fender Bassman and it's reissue considered by many to be the
"holy grail" for amplified harmonica? I know what guitarists think of the
amp. But why harp? What is the earliest known use of this amp, does anyone
know? And how did it all snowball to make this amp de riguer?

(Don't get me wrong...I've heard many a player get some fine tunes out of a
Bassman. I've actually owned two Bassman RI's, the latest with a Hoffman
(actually an Ultratone) point-to-point board installed by Ron Holmes. (Yes,
I know it was not an ORIGINAL Bassman, but my question is still relevant.)
Pretty good sound, I must agree. I played it set up as in original
configuration, that is, a 12AY7 in the first preamp socket. The rest was
stock, including Tung-Sol 5881's).

The reason I ask?

Cuz it don't make sense.

For amplified harp, anyway.

My former guitarist, who has a pretty good knowledge of amps, and I were
discussing this topic a few days ago. This is what we determined:

The Bassman was designed as, you guessed it, a bass amp. And as such, Fender
tried to get it as CLEAN a sound as possible for obvious reasons, and as it
was designed around their bass instruments. Fender amps have hotter inputs
than, say, Gibson amps. The reason for this is that Fender pickups at the
time were fairly weak...except for their bass guitars, which put out more
signal than same-era guitars. So Fender built their Bassman to be their
cleanest responding amp to accommodate the heavy input of an electric bass.
As a result, when compared to other tweed amps of the same era (except maybe
a Super), the Bassman is really the cleanest sounding of them all.

So why in the world would you want to use it for harp?

Let's discuss...

Sincerely,
Ray Beltran
www.resgraphics.com/Music.html