LeftyBassist.com

Rather than continuing in the "Wanted" section, I thought that I would start this in the Photo Gallery section. Not sure if this correct either, but what the Hell!

From the first time that Paulo pointed this bass out to me on Ebay, up until this past week, I have been trying to figure out why this bass came to be. I have been searching everything from A to Z to see if there was anything at all about this bass. This past week I had a Duhh moment and decided to look up the band, "The Outlaws." The series that this bass came from was the Electra Outlaw series after the band, well....The Outlaws. Electra as far as I am aware of never offered a left handed bass or guitar in their MPC line, or at least none that I can find online that is.

A couple of things about the bass made me think that it could be a one off and I began thinking who would Electra have made this bass for. This leads me back to this past weeks search of the band. Checking Wikipedia for the band, at the bottom are a list of past and present band members. The Outlaws high point was between 1975-1980, the bass being made in 1978 narrowed the list to two possible bass players. When I seached the two, the fist person was a hit! The bass player for the band between 1976-1980 was a gentleman made Harvey Dalton Arnold. Harvey is indeed a left handed bass player!

After some more searching and a lot of luck, I have been able to contact Harvey and have been talking with him about the bass. He has said that his memory is not crystal clear, but he remembers playing this bass back stage at one of the shows! He did not take ownership of the bass, but does seem to recall the guys from St. Louis Music bringing a couple of guitars. He said that they were more interested in Hughie and Billy, the guitar players. Harvey told me that he was very much into his P-bass at the time and was not that interested in anything else. In truth, I didn't see this bass as a Southern Rock type bass anyway. Harvey is really a Very nice guy and has been a pleasure conversing with. I will share more from him as I get it.

Next on the list is the new Electra Guitar company. I have an email out to Mick Donner over there to see if he can help collect more information. Right now though, as it stands, it looks like this may be the only one ever made! More to come as I get it and Thanks if you made it this far!

Bill

I love this Stuff! Congrats on your research!

His loss is your gain! I got to try it out while Paulo had it and it was a great sounding bass and fun to play while tinkering through all the settings.

Update: Mick Donner got back to me and he forwarded the email to Tom Presley who was the Original Engineer at Electra!


This picture is of the tuners that I made up custom for her. The original became very hard to turn. I didn't want to make new mounting holes, but the gears we make are a bigger diameter than the stock tuners. Made them just using the bottom to screws, the strings pull the tops in flat to the headstock. Much nicer feeling now! Can see the break in the headstock in this picture.

Cool bass and history!

A picture showing where some of the design aspect may have started, well half of it anyways....maybe 1/4.

You're killing me with these pix, Bill. Such a great find! And that's awesome that you've been able to get some background history too. I had no idea The Outlaws were in any way affiliated with these basses.

I've looked on Reverb and ebay for you from time to time to see if any of those MPC modules pop up, and they rarely do. There was a guy selling an Electra guitar as a lot with a few of them included, but you'd have to buy a whole guitar just to get them.

Harvey Dalton Arnold. He plays out from time to time around here in Raleigh/Durham/ChapelHill NC.

Thanks! Looking forward to possibly hearing from Tom.

Harvey is still active in music, which is really nice to hear! He has said that he is now retired from his regular or day job as he put it and is now doing just music. He has also said that retirement is far busier than he had imagined.

Everything is super cool about this bass but one thing I've never seen in any other bass and I really like is the tortoise binding on the neck!
...And from there on.
Very cool background history, congrats Bill and keep digging!
Just found this pic online: