Ernie Ball Music Man has honored low-end legend Pino Palladino with three new four-string signature guitars.
Palladino is a maverick who requires no introduction. The revered session bass guitar player, songwriter and producer has carved out a formidable career, working with everyone from Jeff Beck and David Gilmour to John Mayer, Eric Clapton, Nine Inch Nails and even Adele.
Now, Pino – whose connection to the StingRay bass has been the backbone of his musical journey – has been awarded three new signature bass guitars that pay tribute to one of his most cherished instruments: a 1979 fretless StingRay.
Two Artist Series versions – one fretted and one fretless – have been released alongside a more intricate Icon Series variant, which has been dubbed a “museum-grade replica” of the original.
It’s a full-circle moment for the revered bass player, who first crossed paths with a Music Man bass when he was a youngster. But he’d have to wait a few years until he got his hands on one.
“In Wales where I was born, there was a music store,” Palladino explains in a promotional video. “I remember seeing a Music Man bass in the window and thinking, ‘What is that?’ Because I was only familiar with Fender basses.
“I went and checked it out, and the guy who ran the store wouldn’t let young musicians like me pick the instruments up. So I was always ready to try it out but I never got the chance.
“Roll on a whole bunch of years to 1981, I was in New York on a tour with my good friend Jools Holland. I walked into Sam Ash Music Store and I saw this fretless Music Man bass up there on the wall and it just looked so cool.
“I hadn’t really played much fretless bass before that, but I just immediately felt I could play it. It was fun to play so I had to have the bass. I got my tour manager and said, ‘I need 350 bucks now,’ which he wasn’t very happy about.
“Eventually he came up with it and I bought the bass, and I played it that night on the gig. Since I bought that bass, it really changed my career. I became known as a fretless bass player and used that bass exclusively on nearly all the recordings from ’81 through to ’96.”
The Icon Series model recreates this career-altering bass in all its glory. Every detail (read: bangs and scrapes) has apparently been scrutinized and faithfully reproduced, from the aged sunburst finish to the authentic relic’ing, NOS hardware, model-accurate Wales Rugby sticker on the rear, and Pino’s signature on the headstock.
It’s composed from hand-selected poplar bodies and slab rosewood fingerboards (fretless, of course) and offers a custom-wound pickup with ⅝” Alnico V magnets and 42 gauge wire. In other words, it’s exactly like the original.
“This is more than a signature instrument,” Ernie Ball writes of the bass, of which only 15 will be produced. “It’s a faithful time capsule of an artist-defining tool that helped shape the course of modern bass playing.”
For those Palladino fans who aren’t keen on fretless guitars – and aren’t worried about getting all the bells and whistles of the Icon Series model – the two Artist Series models look to offer the same charm.
They too feature a poplar body, with hard rock maple necks and rosewood fingerboards. The unblemished sunburst colorway is joined by a string-through-body bridge with brass saddles, a Graph Tech nut, a micro-tilt three-bolt neck joint and vintage-style Alnico pickups.
The Icon Series Pino Palladino StingRay bass is available for $5,999, while the two Artist versions are priced at $3,499 apiece.
Visit Ernie Ball Music Man to find out more.
