2024 ASCAP Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Book Award in Pop Music
- 2024 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award for Performing Arts & Music
- 2025 ARSC Certificate of Merit for Best Historical Research on Record Labels or General Recording Topics
The Bastard Instrumentchronicles the history of the electric bass and the musicians who played it, from the instruments invention through its widespread acceptance at the end of the 1960s. Although their contributions have often gone unsung, electric bassists helped shape the sound of a wide range of genres, including jazz, rhythm & blues, rock, country, soul, funk, and more. Their innovations are preserved in performances from artists as diverse as Lionel Hampton, Liberace, Elvis Presley, Patsy Cline, the Supremes, the Beatles, James Brown, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, Jefferson Airplane, and Sly and the Family Stone, all of whom are discussed in this volume. At long last,The Bastard Instrumentgives these early electric bassists credit for the significance of their accomplishments and demonstrates how they fundamentally altered the trajectory of popular music.
Centering the electric bass in popular music history
Brian F. Wrightis Assistant Professor of Music History at the University of North Texas as well as a bass player. His work has been featured in
Vintage Guitarand
Bass Playermagazines and at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
2024 ASCAP Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Book Award in Pop Music Winner
2025 ARSC Certificate of Merit for Best Historical Research on Record Labels or General Recording Topics
2024 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award for Performing Arts Music
“The Bastard Instrumentis a major work that provides a needed corrective to popular music scholarship on this most essential—but too often overlooked—instrument. Wright's work recovers so many stories of electric blă>
![The Bastard Instrument: A Cultural History of the Electric Bass [Paperback]](/itemImage/2/9/3/8/2_7082539.jpg "The Bastard Instrument: A Cultural History of the Electric Bass [Paperback]")