It’s 1968 and Cream arrives in Miami to play a sold-out concert at Thee Image (and no, that’s not a typo, it’s a play on words). Up on stage, in front of a massive wall of Marshall amplifiers, Jack Bruce steps up and plugs in his bass. He hits the low E and the very foundations of the building seem to shake. Now he does a few tasty runs and man, it sounds incredibly fat. Huge. Name your adjective. The band starts playing and proceeds to totally bring down the house for over 90 minutes. At the time, Clapton was playing his hand-painted SG Custom and Bruce was using the original short scale Gibson EB, which was the company’s solidbody SG-style bass. With two humbucker-equipped guitars on stage, there wasn’t a whole lot of treble except for Ginger Baker’s snare and cymbals. Needless to say, Cream got a 10-minute standing ovation. Also needless to say, almost every bass player there left wanting an EB.
Today’s bass players can get that same sound by using Gibson’s
SG Reissue Bass. This bass is a “greatest hits” amalgam of all the best EB features, most notable of which are the slim, short-scale
neck, a mini-humbucker in the bridge position and a TB Plus humbucker in the neck position. While the SG Reissue bass is available with an Ebony finish, most players who are after the vintage look, sound and feel will want the Heritage Cherry version, which is actually dark and rich because the stain is applied to the guitar’s solid mahogany body, which is darker than most other woods to start with. But the best part has to be the price tag, which is a fraction of what you’d pay for a real 1960s SG-style bass (which probably had some major modifications done over the years). Because of the short scale neck, this is a perfect bass for guitar players who want to double on bass or record their own bass lines!