Leni Stern is prepped to cut a track with her ngoni as her trusty Custom Shop Strat waits its turn. The guitar's weathering is the result of finish damage by mosquito spray she used while playing festivals in India and Africa.
Everybody knows it's easy to get a clean, full tone from a Fender Blues Junior and a Strat, but what about a ngoni? That's the 6-stringed Malian instrument that guitarist and singer Leni Stern has adopted as her third core voice. With three plucked and three resonating strings, and a wood, calabash, and animal-skin construction, it seems like a potential nightmare to amplify. But … with the right pickup and her little workhorse combo, she's got it dialed in both live and on her new album Dance—bright and punchy, with just the right touch of air, and a propulsive, fat snap that reveals the ngoni's role in inspiring the banjo while sounding, quite rightfully, from an older, nearly timeless place.
Here's Stern's road-warrior Blues Junior, which has a neodymium Jensen Tornado replacement speaker.
The key, says Stern, was installing a pickup by Carlos Juan, who designed the magnetic wonders that Pat Metheny uses to amplify his Linda Manzer-built 42-string Pikasso. It was given to her by classical guitarist Derek Gripper, and once it replaced the contact pickup she'd been using, the ngoni truly came to electrified life. (See this story online to watch her play the ngoni onstage.)
"On tours, I like to bring my own amp, so I had to reduce the weight of the Blues Junior with a flight case so they would come in at 50 pounds exactly."
"It sounds really well-balanced and has very low feedback, with my Blues Junior, Super Champ, or Matchless," Stern says, bringing up the trio of 15-watt amps that are the stars of this month's column. Stern has had some changes made to all of them—adding a neodymium speaker to the Junior, her most frequent traveling companion, and chop-shopping the Matchless Lightning 15 so its head is removable, significantly reducing the stock weight. The Fender Super Champ's original 10" speaker has been replaced with a 12"—an easy and common mod that gives the little bugger a significantly heftier voice.
While it looks like a first-generation Matchless Lightning 15, the head and cab of Stern's amp have been modded so the head can be lifted out and used independently.
Big, often pastel tones—mostly from Teles and Strats (a '59 hardtail Stratocaster is one of her most-prized guitars)—are among Stern's signatures. And while the Super Champ mostly stays home, the Junior and Lightning do globe trot—just like her music, which is a highly evolved mix of ethnically rooted sounds that Stern traces back to the eclectic internationalist musical tastes of her father and the pancultural sensibility she experienced growing up in Germany, which she then fanned to conflagrance via her own miles-deep jones for learning and exploring. West African music is a particular passion and provides much of Dance's backbone.
Leni Stern Trio at Iridium - 11/2012 - Like a Thief
West—Africa that is—meets west as Leni Stern plays her ngoni through one of the faithful Fender Blues Juniors she's carried to gigs around the world for the past 13 years. In this 2012 performance at Manhattan's Iridium, she's playing "Like a Thief," from 2011's Sabani, one of her series of albums blending the traditional sounds of Senegal and Mali with jazz and pop.
"On tours, I like to bring my own amp, so I had to reduce the weight of the Blues Junior with a flight case so they would come in at 50 pounds exactly," she explains. The weight of the Junior is now 23 pounds, verses its out-of-the-factory 31. For the Matchless, it wasn't as simple as a speaker replacement. The company seamlessly modded the 1x12 combo so the head can be nestled in the cab or travel separately. Both are run through a pedalboard, and while the Matchless has no reverb and requires a stompbox, the Junior has the company's classic spring reverb. The tube array is three 12AX7s for the Junior's preamp stage and two EL84 power tubes, with 3-band EQ plus master and volume dials, and a fat-boost switch she often uses. Her favorite source of overdrive, though, is a Free the Tone Heat Blaster, which lends the kind of smooth, creamy power-tone that she shares with her husband, Mike Stern. (Watching them perform together is as much fun as seeing a pair of otters at play.) The Matchless Lightning, by the way, also has three 12AX7s, one EL84 power tube, and volume and master dials with 2-band EQ.
And here's the (mostly) homebody: a Fender Super Champ with a 12" Celestion TN120.
It becomes obvious in conversation that the Junior is her favorite. She speaks of it as warmly as the amp itself speaks. "I've had three over the past 13 years, because it has a circuit board and those get damaged in all the travel, which doesn't happen with point-to-point-wired amps like the Matchless," she notes. "But the Junior is very versatile, with tones that have the lightness and sweetness of a Princeton, but they're stronger and louder. I use the overdrive function a lot. It gets me a little into Boogie territory."
To misquote John Lennon, happiness is a warm tone, but Stern does have one regret regarding amps. "I'm still a little mad at myself for not buying a Dumble 25 years ago when Robben Ford told me I should," she says. "At the time, they were just becoming popular, but a Blues Junior only cost $300 or something like that. I thought paying $3,000 for an amp was ridiculous." She laughs.
Leni Stern: Kono (Bird)
Stern's new album, Dance, is a lovely and gentle fusion of her sprawling influences that amounts to a genre unto itself. Here, Stern and her band, keyboardist Leo Genovese, bassist Mamadou Ba, and percussionist Alioune Faye, showcase the delicate melody and rolling groove of "Kono."
- Interview: Bill Frisell - Off the Deep End - Premier Guitar ›
- 17 Guitar & Bass Heroes Hail Their Heroes - Premier Guitar ›
- Mike Stern: Spirit Is Everything - Premier Guitar ›
Gibson originally launched the EB-6 model with the intention of serving consumers looking for a “tic-tac” bass sound.
The Gibson EB-6 was announced in 1959 and came into the world in 1960, not with a dual-horn body but with that of an elegant ES-335. They looked stately, with a thin, semi-hollow body, f-holes, and a sunburst finish. Our pick for this Vintage Vault column is one such first-year model, in about as original condition as you’re able to find today. “Why?” you may be asking. Well, read on....
When the EB-6 was introduced, the Bass VI was still a glimmer in Leo Fender’s eye. The real competition were the Danelectro 6-string basses that seemed to have popped up out of nowhere and were suddenly being used on lots of hit records by the likes of Elvis, Patsy Cline, and other household names. Danos like the UB-2 (introduced in ’56), the Longhorn 4623 (’58), and the Shorthorn 3612 (’58) were the earliest attempts any company made at a 6-string bass in this style: not quite a standard electric bass, not quite a guitar, nor, for that matter, quite like a baritone guitar.
The only change this vintage EB-6 features is a replacement set of Kluson tuners.
Photo by Ken Lapworth
Gibson, Fender, and others during this era would in fact call these basses “baritone guitars,” to add to our confusion today. But these vintage “baritones” were all tuned one octave below a standard guitar, with scale lengths around 30", while most modern baritones are tuned B-to-B or A-to-A and have scale lengths between 26" and 30".)
At the time, those Danelectros were instrumental to what was called the “tic-tac” bass sound of Nashville records produced by Chet Atkins, or the “click-bass” tones made out west by producer Lee Hazlewood. Gibson wanted something for this market, and the EB-6 was born.
“When the EB-6 was introduced, the Bass VI was still a glimmer in Leo Fender’s eye.”
The 30.5" scale 1960 EB-6 has a single humbucking pickup, a volume knob, a tone knob, and a small, push-button “Tone Selector Switch” that engages a treble circuit for an instant tic-tac sound. (Without engaging that switch, you get a bass-heavy tone so deep that cowboy chords will sound like a muddy mess.)
The EB-6, for better or for worse, did not unseat the Danelectros, and a November 1959 price list from Gibson hints at why: The EB-6 retailed for $340, compared to Dano price tags that ranged from $85 to $150. Only a few dozen EB-6 basses were shipped in 1960, and only 67 total are known to have been built before Gibson changed the shape to the SG style in 1962.
Most players who come across an EB-6 today think it was a response to the Fender Bass VI, but the former actually beat the latter to the market by a full year.
Photo by Ken Lapworth
It’s sad that so few were built. Sure, it was a high-end model made to achieve the novelty tic-tac sound of cheaper instruments, but in its full-voiced glory, the EB-6 has a huge potential of tones. It would sound great in our contemporary guitar era where more players are exploring baritone ranges, and where so many people got back into the Bass VI after seeing the Beatles play one in the 2021 documentary, Get Back.
It’s sadder, still, how many original-era EB-6s have been parted out in the decades since. Remember earlier when I wrote that our Vintage Vaultpick was about as original as you could find? That’s because the model’s single humbucker is a PAF, its Kluson tuners are double-line, and its knobs are identical to those on Les Paul ’Bursts. So as people repaired broken ’Bursts, converted other LPs to ’Bursts, or otherwise sought to give other Gibsons a “Golden Era” sound and look ... they often stripped these forgotten EB-6 basses for parts.
This original EB-6 is up for sale now from Reverb seller Emerald City Guitars for a $16,950 asking price at the time of writing. The only thing that isn’t original about it is a replacement set of Kluson tuners, not because its originals were stolen but just to help preserve them. (They will be included in the case.)
With so few surviving 335-style EB-6 basses, Reverb doesn’t have a ton of sales data to compare prices to. Ten years ago, a lucky buyer found a nearly original 1960 EB-6 for about $7,000. But Emerald City’s $16,950 asking price is closer to more recent examples and asking prices.
Sources: Prices on Gibson Instruments, November 1, 1959, Tony Bacon’s “Danelectro’s UB-2 and the Early Days of 6-String Basses” Reverb News article, Gruhn’s Guide to Vintage Guitars, Tom Wheeler’s American Guitars: An Illustrated History, Reverb listings and Price Guide sales data.
Originally released in the 1980s, the Victory has long been a cult favorite among guitarists for its distinctive double cutaway design and excellent upper-fret access. These new models feature flexible electronics, enhanced body contours, improved weight and balance, and an Explorer headstock shape.
A Cult Classic Made Modern
The new Victory features refined body contours, improved weight and balance, and an updated headstock shape based on the popular Gibson Explorer.
Effortless Playing
With a fast-playing SlimTaper neck profile and ebony fretboard with a compound radius, the Victory delivers low action without fret buzz everywhere on the fretboard.
Flexible Electronics
The two 80s Tribute humbucker pickups are wired to push/pull master volume and tone controls for coil splitting and inner/outer coil selection when the coils are split.
For more information, please visit gibson.com.
Gibson Victory Figured Top Electric Guitar - Iguana Burst
