RayL wrote:Excuse the digression, but Fender's Telecaster bass had the early-Precision shape, which always seemed wrong to me.
It should have had the Telecaster-shape. Alan Entwistle obviously felt the same, so he designed the Alden 'TV Cruiser' bass.
Butterscotch finish, maple neck with rosewood fingerboard, full 34" scale, two pickups,
and the same controls (Volume, Tone and pickup selector) as a standard Telecaster.
When Fender (re)introduced the original-pattern Precision Bass as the "Telecaster Bass" in 1969 or thereabouts, they really should have called it the 1952 Vintage Reissue Precision Bass, but that concept would not really exist until the early 1980s.
They had to think up a name that marked out the instrument for its vintage-style spec whilst not confusing the public between it and the then-current spec Precision Bass (broadly in its post 1957 guise).
It was a mistake, that's for certain. Later outfitting it with a bass version of the Seth Lover wide-range humbucker was an even worse one.
Why did Fender not use the Telecaster guitar body shape for the Precision Bass in 1952?
Because it looks bloody awful in bass form, that's why!
Fender rarely made a styling mistake, getting it right first time every time (until the CBS era at least). And they created a masterpiece with the original Precision shape, which had a lot in common with the Telecaster / Esquire but was the direct ancestor of the Stratocaster.