WARNING: Lot's of backstory and rambling ahead. Proceed at your own risk. You've been warned...

As you can probably tell by the images in my signature, I'm a big Allman Brothers fan, especially the Duane-era lineup. About 12 or so years ago I had a P bass that I wasn't doing anything with so I stripped the finish off it in hopes of doing something interesting with it in the future. On another forum I saw someone turn a P bass into a Tractor bass. If you're not familiar with the Tractor it was a bass (or, more correctly, basses) played by Berry Oakley who was their original bass player and was killed in a motorcycle accident just over a year after Duane's death. The Tractor was a Jazz bass that Berry and Joe Dan Petty modified. They moved the neck pick up between the bridge and bridge pick up and installed the pickup from Berry's Guild bass into the neck position. There were two of these basses, on a sunburst and another natural. Berry's son owns and still plays the natural bass from time to time.

So back to the bass. A year or two after I stripped the body down to bare wood I started thinking about doing my own Tractor bass. A friend and I went to a little club in Athens, GA. to see Oteil Burbridge with his band the Peacemakers. I brought the body and Oteil was hanging out with folks before the show. I told him I had the bass body and wondered if he'd sign it. He said sure and I got the first signature. The project sat for a while since I couldn't find a source for the pickups. Luckily, Curt Novak started making them to the original specs again so I ordered a pair immediately. During this time I was also slowly buying the rest of the parts needed. Earlier this year I went to a Tedeschi Trucks show in Reading PA. I thought it would be cool to get Derek Trucks' signature on the bass since he played with the Brothers for so many years (just like Oteil). I got in touch with their bass player, Tim Levebvre over Twitter and told him what I was trying to do. He was incredibly gracious and even gave me his cell phone number so I could get in touch with him after the show. He met me at the rear of the venue and took the bass on the bus (I wasn't allowed on) and got it signed by Derek, Susan, and himself. I couldn't believe it, I was over the moon. That finally gave me the resolve to finish ordering the parts and have the bass put together. Since it required routing and sanding/finishing, I didn't want to try these things on my own so I took it to a local shop who did an amazing job. Here's what the final bass looks like. It gives you that growly percussive sound you'd hear on the old Allman Brothers records as well as Jefferson Airplane/Hot Tuna, and Grateful Dead records (both Jack Casady and Phil Lesh used the same pickups extensively in their earlier days). I am not much of a bass player but this thing is just amazing.

DSCF0738 by Ryan_D, on Flickr

DSCF0734 by Ryan_D, on Flickr

[url= https://flic.kr/p/wDMc17 ][img] https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3