INNOVATIVE LUTHIER TRAVIS BEAN DIES AT 63
BY CHARLES SAUFLEY
BURBANK, CA – Travis Bean, the
innovative California luthier whose
aluminum-necked guitars and basses
became favorites of platinum-selling
1970s superstars and underground
sonic iconoclasts alike, passed away
at his home in Burbank on July 10
from complications related to cancer.
He was 63.
Bean started Travis Bean Guitars in
1974 with the help of partners Marc
McElwee and Gary Kramer (who
later founded Kramer Guitars). Bean’s
guitars were all built around aluminum necks and a neck-through-body
design intended to eliminate neck warping, minimize tuning and intonation issues, and enhance
sustain and note definition. Bean’s guitars weren’t the first to feature aluminum necks—Wandre and
Veleno both used aluminum extensively for necks and bodies—but Bean’s instruments were superb
all-around guitars and attracted the attention of many of the era’s most prominent players.
Jerry Garcia was using a humbucker-equipped TB1000A by 1975 and a single-coil-equipped
TB500 by 1976 to achieve his crystalline signature tone. Keith Richards and Ron Wood both
used Travis Beans on the Rolling Stones 1975 tour. Heart’s Roger Fisher, Greg Lake of ELP, and
jazz giant Stanley Jordan also helped elevate Travis Bean’s status in the ’70s.
Bean’s guitar’s might have remained curiosities to all but Grateful Dead fanatics and ’70s revivalists were it not for a rediscovery in the late ’80s and ’90s by hard-hitting sonic experimentalists,
including Steve Albini of Big Black and Duane Dennison of Jesus Lizard—who prized the high-end sting and sturdiness of Travis Beans for their aggressive post-punk styles—and Lee Ranaldo
of Sonic Youth, who used the rich, ringing, and sustaining qualities of his TB1000 for the band’s
colossally droning orchestral textures.
Though Bean stopped building Travis Bean-branded guitars in 1979 after just five years of
production, he built slightly more than 3,500 instruments. Eventually, the renewed interest in the
exceptionally rare guitars prompted Bean to begin building a very limited number of specimens
again in the late ’90s.
A website has been established to help Bean’s widow pay off his medical expenses. You can find
more information at
helptravisbean.com.
Travis Bean at NAMM in 1977. Photo courtesy of Rick Oblinger
recruited to join the company
in 1956.
In 1960, Oliver invented and
patented the B- 15, a unique and
innovative bass combo featuring
a double-baffle porting system,
closed-back reflex cabinet, and
flip-top function that proved
handy for storage and transport,
while also protecting the amp’s
tubes. Beautiful in appearance
and purposeful in form, the B- 15
offered a warm, round sound
that quickly attracted pro players.
In the ’60s, session bassists from
James Jamerson to Chuck Rainey
installed these amps in all the
studios they worked, setting the
low-end tone for countless hits.
Fifty years later, the B- 15 remains
highly sought-after and has
earned the distinction of being
the most-recorded bass amplifier
in history.
It is also generally acknowledged that Oliver was the
first to put spring reverb
in a combo amp for guitar.
Incorporating Hammond’s new
reverb unit into Oliver’s earlier
circuitry, Ampeg introduced
the Reverberocket in mid
1961. Other companies would
quickly follow suit. He also
created the Ampeg Baby Bass,
based on the Zorko bass, in the
mid 1960s. He served as vice
president of Ampeg until 1966,
Original Ampeg
Engineer Jess Oliver
Dies at 85
BY ANDY FUCHS AND GREGG
HOPKINS WITH DENNIS KAGER
LONG ISLAND, NY – If it were
not for the work of Jess Oliver,
electric bass as we know it might
not exist. It’s reasonable to compare Oliver’s B- 15 Portaflex to
Les Paul’s solidbody guitar or Leo
Fender’s Precision electric bass as
icons that ushered in the modern
music revolution. Oliver passed
away on June 30 at age 85.
Born Oliver Jespersen in
1926, he played guitar and
bass in local bands before being
drafted in 1944 during WWII,
where he played bass in the
Army band. Upon returning to
the U.S., he became an electrician while continuing to gig
in New York City. It was there
he visited the fledgling Ampeg
company—then a cramped
workshop on 42nd Street—to
buy an internal microphone
(known as the amplified peg or
“Ampeg”) for his bass. When
he demonstrated his ability
to install it himself, he was
